More Than Meets the Eye
by Dreamingsinger
Summary: The Tenth Doctor and Rose encounter a strange young woman running from a mugger in a London alley way.  Who is she, why are their paths meant to cross again, and why does she know of Gallifrey?  Can she ever become all she was meant to be?  Title pending.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, or it's characters The BBC does. No profit is made from this story. I'm just writing it for fun. **

** Author's notes: Well I decided on a new fic, because I've had this new idea kicking around in my head (in different slowly evolving forms,) for a while. Tenth Doctor and Rose this time, just because well I think Ten is the best new series Doctor for this particular plot, and I think he worked best with Rose in the series. This would technically be AU I think, because it does not align to the events of season two at all, but follows it's own series of events. This story will potentially be several chapters long and have plenty of room for some real character development. **

"I remember that one," Rose Tyler cried in excitement, laughing out loud and stopping on the sidewalk to rest her hands on her knees as a fit of giggles escaped from her control. She composed herself after several seconds, looked up and with her eyes watering from laughter exclaimed, "that kind of remained me of that time back on Alteron Three. Remember that six armed blue thing..." she doubled over laughing again, and stumbled slightly over her own left foot, trying to walk and laugh so hard at the same time. "Trying to look so scary and mean... running with all four eyes looking at us... the wet floor in the hall..."

"Luckiest escape ever," the Doctor said, laughing slightly himself, and reaching out to stop Rose from falling over a crack in the uneven sidewalk.

"Boom!" Rose cried, still laughing loudly, and throwing her arm forward to indicate how a nine foot tall and cobalt blue alien, had hit the floor hard after slipping in a puddle of water, left by a floor mopping bucket the creature itself had earlier stepped in.

"It was Alteron Four though," the Doctor said. "Alteron Three is just so hot. Molten rock, steaming mountains. Not a place to visit at all."

"Three, four, five, all the same to me. I can't keep track of all these planets," Rose replied as her laughter subsided.

"Seriously though," she said, as the two to them made their way along a quiet side street of London in the evening. "I'm just happy to travel with you to... everywhere and anywhere. So, clearly we are in London, England, Earth, but _when _are we?"

"Oh, around the middle of March, in the year 2007."

"Great. Hey I might just go and see my Mum, while we're in the neighborhood. Want to come?"

"No, no. I don't still don't think she likes me very much. I might just drop in on an old friend of mine for the evening. I have some business to take care of."

"So, that's why we came here?"

"That and your Mum of course, yes."

"Thank you," Rose said, turning to him with a smile on her face.

"Have a nice time. I'll meet you back here in the morning. We're not too far from the estate. You have your phone?"

"Of course. Call me if anything comes up."

Rose stood with the Doctor on the corner of the quiet street as they both looked around at the closed shops and the traffic lights across the intersection. It was obviously a Sunday evening, because most businesses had closed early. She found it a little strange to think in terms of days of the week, in the midst of a life in which days were of no real consequence, and fell in no real and particular order anymore. A bus rolled down the road, with a few people on board. The lights from inside it showed dimly through the windows. Two men walked out of a pub a short way up the street, clearly tipsy, cheerful and both chuckling over a woman named Mary-Clare. Both men nodded a greeting, and Rose and the Doctor both cheerfully responded with polite nods of their own. A red car pulled up to a red light at the corner, music blasted from within, and it's driver, a young redheaded woman, tapped her hands on the wheel. The light changed to green and she took off, driving fast. It was just another simple and ordinary evening in London. A night full of ordinary people doing ordinary things. After a quick wave to each other, the Doctor and his companion turned in opposite directions and began to walk off to the places they intended to go.

A girl running up the street caught the attention of them both. Such a thing would typically not have attracted much notice at all, except that she was looking backward as she ran, as if she were looking for and fearing seeing, someone behind her. Rose saw her as a multi-colored blur of motion as the girl hurried past, pushed her lightly out of the way without saying a word and ran toward the entrance to an alleyway. Rose would have continued on her way, after deciding there was not a thing she could do about it, and hoping the girl was alright, if she had not been knocked right off her feet by a big bald headed man in a motorcycle jacket, and jeans.

"Stop you little fool," she heard him shout at the girl, as she pulled herself to her feet and looked around frantically after the pair.

"Give me your wallet!" the big man bellowed, running with the poor girl still ahead of him. Rose looked around for the Doctor, and found him at the end of the block, standing in his own shocked position against a brick wall. She hurried over to him.

"Help," she cried, as she ran. "Someone stop that man. He's tryin' to mug that girl!" But there was virtually no one around, and those few that drove by in their cars just drove on past.

The Doctor took off running after the would be mugger as soon as it registered in his mind, what he was witnessing. Rose turned as he hurried past her, and she ran after beside him, pulling her mobile phone from the pocket of her jeans as she ran.

"Go on to your Mum's" he said. "I have to stop that guy, but I can deal with this one alone."

"No way," she answered, continuing to run. "I'm sticking with you!" They both saw the mugger chase the girl into the alley and they rushed after him.

"Stop!" Rose called to the man, doing her best to sound authoritative, and in control. "You've been caught. Now leave her be." The big brute of a man only ran onward, ignoring her.

"Looks like a dead end up ahead," the Doctor whispered to her, as they both slowed their pace a little. "He will find himself with now here to run." He grinned, as a plan of action crossed his mind. "Stay here. If he turns and comes back this way, try to trip him with your foot." He raced off running again after the mugger.

Rose stood at the entrance to the alley, watching to see how everything would unfold, hoping to God the mugger did not have a hidden knife, and waiting for a chance to make a move of her own. The alley was just a simple ordinary urban London back alley in a working class district of the city. The brick walls of the backs of a few apartment buildings, as well as a several bars, restaurants and various shops, stood tightly against each other. The glow of a few dim lights illuminated everything from the narrow and well worn doorways. Trash bins stood here and there against the walls, and various bits of old junk had been discarded carelessly.

The girl, dressed in a red tank top, a pair of tight black pants, rainbow leg warmers, and with her black hair streaked with pink and blue, falling loose under a bright purple barret, ran straight toward the dead end wall at the end of the poorly lit alley. Her multi colored plastic bracelets caught the light as she ran. Rose felt the dread rising up in her stomach. That poor girl could not have known she was running into a dead end, when she had decided on to make for the alley. Of course, Rose also knew full well, a back alley was not the safest place she could have chosen to run in the first place. For crying out loud. Didn't this girl know a thing about street smarts and personal safety in a city? She was certainly more than old enough to know much of what she clearly didn't know. She made a mental note to herself to give this colorful young lady a few lessons on urban common sense when this matter of the attempted mugging was resolved.

"I said give me your wallet you little brat!" The mugger bellowed. He was catching up to her, but at the same time the Doctor was even faster in gaining on him. Rose had no idea whatsoever what he actually planned to do once he managed to catch the guy. The man was bigger than him and at any rate, the Doctor was hardly the slamming folks into walls and threatening them, type of man. She supposed he must have intended to simply distract him and give the girl a good chance to get away.

"Over my dead body, creep," the girl shouted, turning back for the briefest of seconds. She knocked over a trash bin with one hand as she ran past it. In nearly a single motion she was across to the other side of the alley and had knocked down a second one, as the mugger flew over the first. Several worn out tires, piled behind an auto repair shop, were knocked down next. The girl pulled on free of the bottom of the pile and that sent the rest flying. She sent the tire she had pulled out, rolling down the gravel of the alley. The big bald man fell again just as he got to his feet. This time he fell right over the second bin face first. He landed on top of the tires, stunned and winded and gasping for breath. The Doctor unfortunately fell over a rolling garbage bin himself. he'd been running to fast to stop dead, and avoid the metal bin.. He fell backward, landed on his backside, and sat on the dusty ground, shocked into speechlessness. He quickly stood up again, unhurt, as rose rushed over to help anyone she could. The girl in the brightly colored outfit, bounded in one jump, to the top of a big blue dumpster at the end of the alley, in front of the back wall of a six story apartment building. With one more, much simpler jump, she grabbed onto the bottom of the fire escape, pulled herself up onto it and climbed it up to the roof. She took some of the steps two or three at a time.

"Well she had that one under control by herself," the Doctor remarked, as Rose ran up beside him. "Wow, she has some quick moves. What fast thinking. She seems brilliant."

"But how is she going to get down from the roof?" Rose asked in concern.

"Oh, she will just climb back down the way she came once this guy here is not nearby." he gestured to the mugger and took his sonic screwdriver from the pocket of his coat. Of course he couldn't hurt him in any way with that. It was not a weapon, but the man could never have known that. Rose realized right away that the simple bluff he was planning to use to scare him away might just work very well. He pulled the shocked, and now very nervous mugger to his feet and pointed toward the street, trying to drive home his message about getting away from that place, and his narrowly escaped victim. The man's eyes grew a little wider as he turned to run away fast. The Doctor and Rose looked up to the rooftop, but the girl, instead of climbing back down the fire escape, was running along the top of the roof. She clearly intended to make her way over to the next building.

"Gallifrey shall never be forgotten," the girl shouted down from the roof, without even looking back. "A Time Lord lives on!" The Doctor was shocked into stunned and frozen silence. The screwdriver, fell from his hand and fell to the ground. Rose picked it up, and hesitantly moved to hand it to him. He was startled and shocked and his eyes were open wide as he slowly looked up over the line of the rooftops.

"_What?" _he said, more to himself than to his companion.

**Ha ha ha, cliff hanger, lol. Be warned, I do love to end on cliff hangers so... yeah... Ok that one was a short chapter I know, but the next one will be longer. Is this worth going on with? Please let me know in a review whether I should or not. Opinions and reviews are good motivations to update. **


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor had been pacing back and forth across the TARDIS console room for at least the past half hour. Rose had to admit she was growing concerned. She had always known him to be a very composed and collected person, and had never seen him so shaken up by anything before. Together they had faced dangers greater than most people would ever imagine, and none of those things had ever gotten him so flustered. He was talking to himself in quiet and mumbled tones under his breath, while trying hard to think of something he had missed before. Thinking and figuring things out tended to come easy for him, but of course it would be easier to think if he was not so extremely flustered and confused over what he was trying to figure out in the first place.

"Doctor!" Rose said from her seat near the console. She had sat down not long before, in hopes that he would take a hint and sit down as well. He was making her nervous. He did not answer her and she repeated his name, this time slightly louder. Finally he slowed his pace a little and turned to look at her.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm just a bit distracted tonight."

"I can see that," Rose answered. She gestured toward the seat. "Would you sit down, or something. Or at least stop doing that, and tell me what you're thinking."

"How can an ordinary human girl have known the name of my planet?" The Doctor asked, rhetorically. "And it's not so much that she knew it. I suppose she could have picked that up somewhere, however unlikely that would be. But I just know her comment was directed right at me. My planet no longer even exists so you can imagine how hard I was hit by hearing it's name from some girl on a rooftop, in cental London!"

"You alright?"

"Oh yes, I'm fine. Just baffled completely by this one. I've got to hand it to her though. It takes a lot to baffle me."

"Well," Rose said, "let's just think about this for a minute. Perhaps she works for Torchwood. Wouldn't they have a pretty good record of you and your planet?" The Doctor stopped pacing completely, and went over to lean with his back against the console.

"That's possible I suppose," he said thoughtfully. "She looks too young to work for anyone however. She can't be more than sixteen years old. She's certainly self sufficient though and knows how to get out of trouble." He stood, with one leg crossed over the other, and his eyes narrowed in thought. "Still, she could be older then she looks, easily I guess. If you are right though, why would Torchwood have someone running around in the alleys of the city on a Sunday night? There was no sign of anything alien, or unexplained going on."

"Well she didn't start out in the alley. She ran in there after that mugger chased her. I see your point though. Maybe she was sent out by Torchwood to find you? Someone might have seen us materialize, and she was sent here." She stopped for a moment to think and then said. "Perhaps she was around here looking for the TARDIS, but ended up running into that mugger."

"No, Rose that doesn't work," the Doctor dismissed her calculations. "She was already nearby when we landed. She went rushing by only a few minutes after we got here. Us finding her had to have been a coincidence. She could not have been sent to find us. But still..." he wrung his hands together in nervousness and intent thought. "How could she have known the name 'Gallifrey'? Or Time Lord?"

"Captain Jack, knew as well," Rose pointed out. She was just as puzzled, but trying her hardest to come up with anything that could account for anything logical about their new discovery."

"Yes, but he's a time agent. He's heard of many things that no one else would. And even he thought my world and race were mearly legends at first."

"Maybe she's a time agent. She might know Jack. He might even have sent her to try to meet up with you."

"You know... you might be right," the Doctor thought for a minute and then went on. "There is, according to Jack, no more time agency anymore in his own time. But She might have come from slightly ahead of the time he spoke of in which it was no more. Still though, she looks too young to be working for anybody. And if she wanted to talk to me, why wouldn't she have climbed back down and done that, instead of running off?"

"That's very true."

"I can tell you one thing. There is definitely something odd going on here. But of course that's an understatement"

"We could call Captain Jack," Rose suggested, as the Doctor began to pace back and forth again. "He might know her."

"No, no, he's busy. Besides, I have no idea how to get ahold of him."

"Well there's nothing we can do," the Doctor said after remaining silent for a few long dragging seconds, with a tone of renewed self assurance." We'll just have to hope we see her again. If she does happen to be looking for me, she'll surely find me. Many people seem to be succeeding in that as of recent times. Now, why don't you go on and have that nice little visit with your Mum."

Rose hesitated for a moment before stepping back outside into the night. Though she was only nine blocks from her mother's flat, she opted to catch a bus at the end of the block. The idea of walking around to far had her feeling nervous, now that she had seen that unfortunate girl nearly have her money stolen.

Quik'N'Easy Foods, was a little shop the Doctor and Rose stopped into occasionally, when they wished to restock a few things while landed in London. It was near the estate, and the service was always friendly, so it was as good a place as any to stop. On that particular afternoon, the store was busier than usual.

"I never did understand the deal with milk," the Doctor mused. He stood in front of the diary fridge, with a milk carton in his hand. Rose raised an eyebrow, and gave a questioning look.

"What do you mean?" she laughed. She looked for and found a bag of her favorite sweets, and then reached for a carton of eggs.

"Well, you have your two percent, and then your one percent," the Doctor replied. "Then of course your skim milk as well. Humans have to be so complicated with your labeling systems. You've got a label for everything, from each brand of car, to every kind of toilet paper, to hundreds of different kinds of chocolate bars. And, oh yes, we were talking about milk weren't we? Sorry." Rose burst out laughing, as she put the milk he had been holding into the shopping cart. A man standing nearby, wearing a business suit and choosing snack foods, gave them both a blatantly disapproving, and even dirty, look. Rose only smiled right at the man, and reached for a loaf of bread. She tried to tell him, without any words spoken at all, that while he had every right to give people such looks, her friend also had every right to babble on about the senselessness of different kinds of milk, and she had every right to laugh about it.

A woman in a long blue dress chased two preschool aged children through the produce section, yelling that they had both better knock off their horrible behavior that instant. An elderly man, leafing through a newspaper near the doors, looked slightly surprised when the Doctor confidently asked him for the date.

"The 21st of March," he answered, with a slight laugh. He made a comment about apparently not being the only one to show signs of losing his mind those days, and about how it seemed after all that it was not only the elderly that had no idea what day it was. The two preschoolers were still running around and the woman in the dress was still shouting that them to stop it. The businessman put down his basket of groceries and walked straight toward the doors of the store.

"This place is full of crazy people," he exclaimed to the clerk at the till on his way out. "I will certainly not be shopping here again."

"Well someone is sure moody today," Rose said quietly. She gently stopped one of the running children, a small boy in overalls, before he went crashing right into her.

"Thank you," the woman in blue said to her, picking the child up and placing him into a shopping cart. "And I'm terribly sorry."

"A lot busier in there than I remember," the Doctor commented, as he and Rose stepped into the checkout line, with their cart full groceries.

Rose saw her a few seconds before he did; the mysterious girl standing inside the doorway of the store. She was dressed that afternoon in a short black skirt, red, yellow and blue stripped tights, and a blue knitted sweater with red dots all over it. She had on the same shoes she had worn the last time she'd seen her, and this time her multi-colored hair was tied in pig-tails with red ribbons. She was reaching for a shopping basket, with one had, while in the other she held a grocery list.

"Doctor" Rose whispered. She tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. "It's that girl again."

The Doctor let go of the shopping cart and hurried over to the doors, with Rose following. The girl looked up, saw the two of them walking toward her and stood with a questioning look about her. Suddenly, her eyes grew wide and she turned back to the doors. She ran out of the store and hurried across the street. It seemed to both the Doctor and his companion, to be a strange thing to do, running from two people who just wanted to talk to her and showed no sign of meaning harm. But nevertheless, she ran off.

"Why are you running away?" Rose called, as they chased her onto the next city block. "We need to talk to you." It was evening thankfully, and there were not too many people on the sidewalk at that time of day. Always running, it seemed when it came to that girl. Honestly, what was it with her and running? The first time, she had of course been running from danger and that made perfect sense. This time however, her obvious fear it seemed, was very misdirected.

The two of them ran after the girl in the bright outfit, as she turned a corner and raced up a next avenue, a quiet side road where the TARDIS happened to be parked - against a brick building, and next to a mailbox, in front of another dead end caused by a construction fence. The street was all blocked off and dug up, beyond the chain link. She stumbled backwards over a paper coffee cup that someone had thrown onto the sidewalk, as she tried to back away from the fast advancing pair.

"What do you want?" she demanded, speaking quite loudly and with great agitation in her voice. "Stop chasing me!"

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked, his was calm, but still she reacted negatively to it.

Without even bothering to consider answering, the young lady climbed in a single motion, onto the mailbox. Her eyes moved instantly to a narrow ledge of a brick structure, that she now faced, about nine feet above her head. She made a move to climb to the top of the police box,. It was clear she meant to reach the ledge and climb up to the top of the low roofed building. She was planning her second rooftop escape.

"No, don't climb on that!" Rose exclaimed, in concern. As far as she knew, no one ever climbed on top of the TARDIS before. In her panic of the moment, she worried that something might actually happen to the girl - or possibly to the ship.

"Nah, she can't hurt it," the Doctor said to her quietly. "I wish she'd think about getting down though instead of trying to scale rooftops. She might get hurt."

The girl reached for the top of the box, intent on quickly pulling herself up onto it, so that she could stand up and reach the ledge. However as soon as her hands touched the side, she opened her eyes wide in fright and shock and backed up. With a startled cry, she fell backward, right off the top of the mailbox. She landed on the hard cement of the sidewalk with a dull thump. Her back hit the sidewalk, but she managed to keep her head from bouncing of the pavement. The Doctor hurried around to offer her a hand up, but she only sat herself up looking stunned from her fall, and still for some strange reason frightened of him. She struggled to her feet, but tripped and fell backward again, against a wall, as she tried to gain her footing. Finally, with nowhere to go and him standing in front of her, she held out her hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

"So, who are you?" he asked.

"What do you mean, who am I?" the girl said back. She brushed the dust off the back of her skirt, with one hand.

"Well your name, for a start."

"Hailey Andrews."

"Okay, now we're getting somewhere. I'm the Doctor and this is my friend Rose."

"You don't happen to work for someone do you?" Rose asked, trying her best to keep her tone casual. They were after all just curious about her, and she certainly didn't want it to come off sounding like an interrogation.

"Sure," Hailey answered with a shrug of her shoulders. She blinked green eyes, outlined with too much thick black eyeliner, at them both, in surprise and puzzlement. "I wait tables at the Pint and Barrel pub down on twenty-third. Why?" She was calmer by then, much of her initial unexplained fear gone. She looked back at the TARDIS in curiosity. Clearing she had noticed something that set it apart of a every day run of the mill police call box. She now eyed it suspiciously. The Doctor was more determined then than ever to get a few answers from her about anything should could tell him. Something about her, or quite possibly a few things, did not seem to make sense. Why would a simple ordinary pub waitress know of his home? Why did she have a clear reaction of surprise when she happened to touch his ship? People walked past it all the time. Most barely noticed it or thought a thing of it at all. He'd found many people over the years casually lean on it while talking on mobiles. It had even been painted with graffiti on a few occasions, much to his dismay. People saw it as just a wooden box. Never had he known of such a reaction before.

"How old are you?" Rose asked. It was clear that the girl was a bit older than she looked.

"Almost nineteen," Hailey said. She rolled her eyes a bit. "Yeah, I know. I look young for my age. Aw well, maybe when I'm fifty I'll only look forty and it will have proven to be an advantage to look younger than I am." She laughed and smiled.

"Can we all go and get coffee somewhere and have a chat?" the Doctor found himself asking. "That's what people do when they want to talk about important, or even just casual matters, right? Go and grab coffee and sit and socialize?"

Before long Rose and the Doctor were seating on a bench in the city park nearby, with hot cups of coffee from a small nearby bakery. Hailey was sitting on the grass in front of the same park bench, with her coffee cup next to her on the ground. She said she loved to sit on grass in the early spring.

"So the other night, you ran past us on the rooftop and you mentioned the name of a far away planet," the Doctor said, looking down at her. "How did you possibly know that name?"

"Gallifrey is the name of a real place then for sure?" Hailey asked back. The Doctor nodded his head slowly, and motioned for her to continue. He still had no idea what to make of that girl or her situation. He wondered how much he should tell her and how much he should wait for her to tell him. He decided rather quickly to tell her very little until she mentioned anything first and just see how much she knew about what?

"I heard that name so many years ago. I could not have been more than a year old the first time I heard it and not even two the last time I did. But I have so often wondered if it was a real place."

"So, why did you decide to mention it's name to me, in what seems now to be a random comment with little thought put into it."

Hailey shrugged her shoulders a little bit and then said, "I'm not sure, to be honest. It just seemed like I should, so I said what my mind told me to say. Something told me you would want to know... that it was important to you."

Okay, we'll get back to that one in a moment. But what I really need to know at this moment is why you took off running, when you saw us in the shop."

"I'm not quite sure about that either. It was a silly thing to do I'll admit, and you seem like perfectly nice people." She was silent for a moment, and then went on speaking. She spoke slowly and thoughtfully, trying to explain something complicated that she could clearly barely understand herself. She looked right at the Doctor, and made it clear with her gaze that her comment was directed toward him. "As soon as you came closer to me in there, I felt so strange. It was like you reminded me of someone and I've never known anyone else like him before. Not someone bad at all. He was a very good person. But it was just such a strange feeling. So I got scared and ran." She addressed his next question before he even found a chance to ask it.

"What I'm wondering now is what the heck was up with that weird blue box thingy. I thought nothing of it, but as soon as I touched it, it felt so odd. It startled the daylights outta me."

"That box is mine," the doctor said, having decided that would be fine to tell her. "I can tell you for sure it's never had that kind of effect on anyone before." Hailey looked at him, nervously, but said nothing. She also didn;t move to run off again, which was so far a good sign. "So what do you know about Time Lords?" Rose asked, speaking for the first time since the other two had gotten involved in their serious conversation.

"Not much," Hailey said. "I don't recall hearing that name before until suddenly in my mind I knew what the Doctor was, when I saw him from the rooftop. Sometimes I just know things I shouldn't. The knowledge comes to me out of nowhere, like I'm pulling it from my own subconscious mind. From a place where things I just know without learning are buried waiting to be known. I just felt that it was important to say there was a another Time Lord somewhere. I guess that's because there is one, but I can't say I have any idea how my own mind works." She finished her coffee and looked intently at the Doctor. "So, you tell me if you want to, where is Gallifrey anyways?" She pointed to the sky. "Up there somewhere?"

"It's gone now?" the Doctor said sadly, and the girl just looked at him, both sad and confused. He said nothing more about it except, "perhaps you will learn more about all that one day."

"Okay," Hailey said. It was obvious that she felt awkward and had no idea at all what to say in the face of sadness that she had not forseen her question causing. The Doctor felt is best to change the topic slightly and save her from her guilt over it. She had not of course had any idea that that home was no more and he was alone now.

"So," he said, getting of the bench and sitting with her on the grass with what he hoped would come off as a happy smile on his face. "This man would said I reminded you of and there was not another like him ever before... who was he?"

"My Dad," Hailey answered. She looked at him intently, now showing on her face a sadness of her own. "Left when I was very little and we think he must have died. He went off to fight in a war he didn't want to fight in, and he never came back."

**A/N Yeah the grocery shopping bit in this chapter is strange I suppose, as we never see that soft of thing in the series. But I figure that's one of those things that probably does happen offscreen, and can be assumed that they do actually go to grocery stores and grab coffee and other day to day things once in a while. And if there are any typos in here, sorry about that. it's late here and I edited a couple times, but might have missed something's anyway. As always read and review. Chapter 3 coming soon. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you very much for your kind reviews so far. Glad to hear that there are people enjoying this story. I still have ideas and a direction for this piece and will keep on going. I actually lost a section break line in chapter two. I have no idea how. It must have to do with the formatting on this site, and not allowing certain forms of lines. Sorry for any confusion of frustration that caused, and I shall have to look again and see how other writers make break lines that are able to transfer over, next time such a thing comes up. **

The Doctor, Rose and Hailey walked away from the park and wandered for a while down the quiet streets in the area. They were silent, each thinking their own thoughts and each, for their own unique reasons, both confused and excited. They came back to the blue box, still of course parked where it had been left. The Doctor pulled the key from his pocket, and moved to unlock the doors. Hailey looked at it in curious puzzlement again, but kept her hands away from it. She stood with both hands behind her back, and gave a questioning look?

"What's in the box anyway," she finally asked, rocking slightly on her heels. "Why'd you leave some big wooden box just sitting on a street corner?" She read the sign over the door, and mused, "Police public call box? Looks like something that belongs in a museum. Weren't those all over the place in the fifties?"

"There were, yes," the Doctor said, "This one took on the appearance of one, one day back then, and it seems it got jammed and never changed back out of that form."

"I tried to fix it a few times," he mused, "Even found it to be very important to do at one point years ago. It's been a police box for so long though, it seems to make it unique. I like it that way now."

"So," Hailey said, now wide eyed with a kind of disbelief that strangely still remained within the realms of belief, "if it was working properly, it could look like anything at all?"

"Well not exactly anything. It couldn't be too terribly complicated of a shape or design. Something with say, a great amount of moving parts would confuse the system. Too small and it might not work so well either, because it has to have a door or normal size."

"That's insane," Hailey said. "I actually think I believe it, but it's still insane. What's the point of it though? Like, would you want with a box that can change shape and look like whatever?"

"It's a disguise for it?" the Doctor replied grinning. He slowly pulled open the doors. "This is my ship. If it looks like an everyday object, from wherever it happens to be, no one will really think much of it. It can hide in plain sight."

"A ship?" Hailey asked, shaking slightly. "You mean, like a space ship?"

"Kind of, yes."

"Wow. I still think this whole thing is insane but... wow!"

"Wait," Hailey said after a short moment's very tiny pause, "How can everything a spaceship must need to fly anywhere, not to mention people and supplies, fit inside there?"

"That's the amazing part," Rose said.

"No way to describe it really," the Doctor answered. "Come and see for yourself."

"You want me to go inside a box? With a locking door?" Hailey raised her eyebrows somewhat suspiciously at both of them. "You're not planning on locking me in there are you?"

"No, of course not," the Doctor answered as he and Rose both walked inside. He turned back to look at her. "You humans are so suspicious of everything sometimes."

Hailey, all the while wondering what in the world she was doing, slowly followed the others through the doors. She looked around, her eyes opening wider first in fright, and then when she realized that she was unharmed, in wonder. Still though, she kept her hands beside her and avoided touching even the inside walls. Her eyes moved up toward the ceiling, high over her head, trying to take in the hight of it. Then she looked from the far wall of the main room, back to the doors, taking in the distance between them. All the while she wore a look of confusion as her idea of reality was challenged in a way it never had been before.

"It's much bigger inside," she said slowly, as she walked a very slow circle around the outer edge of the console room. "How in the world can the space inside something be bigger than the object is outside? That goes against the laws of known physics."

"But what about not yet known laws of physics?" the Doctor said, grinning in excitement, as she only blinked at him a few times, becoming close to overwhelmed by everything.

"So, does your ship have a name?" Hailey asked. She finally dared to touch one of the curving support structures that reached from the ceiling high over her head, to the metal grated floor. She pulled her hand back quickly, after barely touching anything with one finger, but then realized that nothing at all had happened and slowly placed the palm of her hand against it. Finally she walked over and jumped backwards a couple feet up onto the little ledge along the wall, and sat on it with her feet several inches off the ground. "Every ship I know of has a name, but what about spaceships?"

"This is the TARDIS," the Doctor said. "Not really a name for just this one though. There were so many of them once. Never thought of naming this one specifically."

"Time and relative dimension in space?" Hailey said, making it sound almost like a question. Almost, but not quite. She swung her feet slightly and thought intently. "Nice and useful acronym. So, this is actually a time-ship then I suppose, and not just a spaceship."

"How did you know that?" the Doctor asked, after a speechless moment. He sat down near the controls, and stared at her with a blank expression on his face.

"I've heard it before," Hailey said.

"Does this relate to your father as well?"

"Yes. I suppose that trying to find out all about him, is why you brought me in here."

"Well that's part of the reason yes. The rest of it you will understand soon, if I am right."

"We aren't going to take off anywhere are we?"

"No," the Doctor said. He could tell she was afraid of the very idea at that time, of ending up anywhere else, other than where she had started out. If he had been thinking of moving his ship anywhere, which he hadn't been, the nervous look in her wide open eyes would have changed his mind about doing so. "We are still parked in the same place. We will just stay parked." He motioned for her to follow him and walked off up a winding staircase. With a look that implied a mix of confidant trust and also some fear, she followed. Rose went too, still curious about the girl, and sure that no one would mind.

"Wow, this place is even bigger than I thought," Hailey said as they all sat down in a comfortable sitting room, a couple of floors up from where they had started; and this after they had passed countless closed doors and a few open ones, on the way there. She flopped down into one of the soft red armchairs in the room, and folded her legs underneath her.

"Okay, about so my Dad. I can't tell you much. I don't remember him very well. I remember my early childhood better than most people, but I was still only two or so when he took off." Hailey looked at both the Doctor and his companion for a moment. They were each seated in other red armchairs, and were waiting to see what she had to say.

"My father as I recall, was a wonderful man. I remember how he used to throw me high up in the war over his head and catch me again. Both of us would laugh, but my mother would stand nearby with a horrified look on her face saying, 'don't you dare drop the baby.' One day he took both of us, my mother and me, I mean, to the beach and we built a sand castle. Then he carried me out into the water, and held me with my feet in the ocean but safe from downing and tried to explain to me at such a young age, that motion of the waves and the rising and falling of the tides, was like the events of time. predictable, yet so impossible to predict exactly. He said that anything, any tiny event, could alter the course of time, just like the movement of the water could be changed. He once showed me much the same thing, by dropping peddles into a puddle after a rainstorm, and then explaining that anything can make ripples in time, just like the smallest stone can make ripples in the water. He loved the idea of time as a non-ordered thing. He said all the time that time can be rewritten and that we all rewrite it every moment without even knowing how much effect we simple beings really have. My mother never understood most of what he said. She loved him so much, but laughed and said he was insane for trying to discuss the theories of time and relativity with a toddler. He said in all seriousness that I was smarter than one should be at my age, and that he thought I might actually be getting the idea of it. He said I was special and that she might never truly understand just how much I might learn." Hailey looked around the room sadly, and with a somewhat embarrassed look about her. "He was the last person who ever said I was either smart of special."

"Do you know what his name was?" Rose asked.

"James Andrews," Hailey answered. She looked saddened by saying his name out loud. "I've always thought it was such an ordinary name for such a far beyond ordinary person. My mother's name was Abigail. She was just an everyday person. A good person back then, but still just a typical stay home mother and housewife. My father though, he was eccentric and strange, and brilliant. He was so intelligent, but most people seemed to think he thought he was above others. I never saw that though, and neither did my mother." She stopped for a moment and sat trying to recall anything else.

"Oh yes," she said finally, "for some reason or another he didn't seem to sleep much. Of course that detail will not be of any help to you, actually I don't think any of it will be. It's something I remember though. I suppose I must have inherited my insomnia from him."

"Actually that bit of information is of more help then you might think in working all this out," the Doctor said. It's amazing how the little details that tend to go unnoticed or unthought of, can be important pieces of a picture. As I often say, notice everything, and discount nothing. So, you have insomnia then?"

"Yes," Hailey said with a look of surprise at how that could actually mean a thing. "I've had it for as long as I can remember. When I was a child I used to be sent to bed early every night and would in my bed thinking, or tossing and turning until the sun came up. Then I'd just get back up early in the morning and get ready for school. I used to worry about it. When I was younger I used to panic sometimes because I knew I had to be up in a short time, but I'd not slept all night. When I got older though I realized, I didn't seem to need the sleep anyway. I got that job at the pub last year, and I started working until two in the morning. I'd get home on the bus very night at night and stay up the rest of the night, doing artwork, or messing around with the computer, because I was wide awake. For a while I was working two jobs, plus managing to get my art done at home, while also taking care of my neighbor's daughter, until her mom got home from work. Of course all this while doing normal things like cooking and cleaning my apartment. Once in a while I will get tired and when I do, I'll go to bed and sleep for about eight hours like anyone else. Only a couple times a week though I actually get tired and feel I want to sleep. It was worse for my father. From what I can remember he seemed to be awake almost all the time. I once heard years later from an old friend of my mother's that he only slept a few hours now and again, but was not ill from his sleep troubles in the least."

"So," the Doctor said, he handed Hailey a cup of tea that Rose had just returned from quickly making in the little kitchen next to the sitting room. "Earlier you were right about the TARDIS acronym. But where did you hear it before, if you don;t mind saying."

"I don't mind, but should I be talking about this at all?" Hailey took a sip of her tea, after stirring in some milk from the little tray on the coffee table. She folded her legs back under herself once again, her tiny frame fitting perfectly that way within the width of the chair. "Last time I talked about this I was seven years old and someone hit me for it."

"Well this ship has a well enforced no hitting policy. I always did find that silly, not to mention a little too violent. Someone doesn't like what a child has to say so they hit 'em." The Doctor began to ramble on a bit as he tried to earn the trust of someone who was clearly starting to see, had a hard time trusting anyone very well. She was someone who, he had a feeling, would soon need to have more trust in him than she might be capable of having. The picture of her that he was forming in his mind was bigger and greater and more complex and tragic than he would ever have first thought.

"That's another thing I learned from my father," Hailey said. "This I barely remember at all, but he had this amazing vehicle that was not really just a vehicle at all. It was the only thing I had ever seen, besides this one, that was bigger inside than outside, and contained a whole little world inside it. His didn't look like a police box though. I don't ever remember seeing his look that way. His looked most often, like a small garden shed. I don't think the neighbors thought much of it parked in the yard. I hadn't thought though until now that it could have been disguised to look inconspicuous in the garden. I might have been so little but I remember how several times I would hear my parents talking downstairs in the kitchen while I lay awake in my bed upstairs. This will sound ridicules, but I am fully convinced my father might not have been human." She stopped speaking and looked around worriedly, For a moment she looked at the floor and sat very still.

"I have no idea at all, why I'm telling you two such things," said finally said. "It sounds such much more insane now that I've said it out loud. And to complete strangers nonetheless. These are thins that in my own head make perfect sense, but said out loud, I'll admit it does sound like I might be crazy." She shook her head,and gave a look of disbelief. "Of course he was human. He just had this crazy machine some some reason, and often spoke about some alien world. If I were to tell people much about him these days, people would probably say that my dad was mentally ill, and that I was only recalling many things incorrectly because I was so young."

"Why would people say that?" the Doctor asked. "What did you hear him talking with your mum about?"

"I used to hear him telling her sometimes about the plan he had in mind. My mother wasn't happy where we were then. They were in a lot of money troubles and could not see a way to get back on track. My father talked about how soon he would pack up her and me and travel back to a place he called Gallifrey. He said it was him home planet, once when I asked him about it one morning. Anyway, he heard him tell her that he thought, or at least hoped that we could all stay there, and that I could soon go to the academy. My mother was nervous about the idea of me starting school at only a few years old, but he said that was the way things were always done and that I'd do well at it.

"One day I woke up after sleeping for a good long while, and I went downstairs on my own because for the first time ever no one had come to get me and bring me down for breakfast. I found my father upset and my mother panicking and suggesting we pack up and get out of England as fast as we could. My dad said there was no way he could just run off. He said that he would be found and made to go away no matter where he ran to, and he would never dare to put us at risk. I think it was that same day, in the evening, that he left the house and I never saw him again. I learned much later from my mother, that he had gone off to fight in a war for from earth, against enemies so terrible that they could barely be imagined. Of course this was not until I was a teenager and had not seen her in a least ten years. The way she explained what had happened to my father, talking so seriously and straight faced about a far away planet and a war that had nothing to do with Earth, I thought she was far more insane than I had always been told."

Hailey shifted in her chair, and looked back and forth between both the Doctor and Rose nervously. "I suppose," she said, "I should let you in on the fact that my mother went into a mental institution when I was for years old, and was still in there when I went to see her about ten years later. I don't think she's even still alive now. God knows, I talk and think about her like she's dead. I don't really know and most of the time I hardly care. I haven't heard a thing from her in a long time, and the hospital has never bothered to contact me either way."

"Maybe you should give them a call one day," rose suggested. "Contact the front desk and inquire about your mum. They will be able to tell you if she's still a patient there, of if she was moved to a new hospital, or passed away."

"I've thought about that," Hailey admitted, "but to be honest with you two, I don't really think I have much of a mother to bother inquiring about. Where was she all the years I moved from home to home and never got a real family? Sure she was ill, but she could have tried harder to write to me or something. I never even got so much as a birthday card from her. And if she's dead, which is most likely is, why didn't I even learn where her grave site is?" She checked the time on her wristwatch and said that she really had to be going home to get ready for work. She was on shift for few extra hours late that night.

"I will figure all this out," the Doctor said as he showed her politely to the door. "You probably grew up hearing that there was something wrong with you for knowing things that people shouldn't. But I think this is bigger than you ever came to understand."

"Thanks for not thinking I'm completely insane."

"Insane? Oh I think you might be for from having that problem."

"So, who are you guys, anyway?" Hailey asked, as she stepped back outside.

"We will explain that to you next time we see you," the Doctor answered , with a look of excitement on his face. "This is if you ever want to come and talk with us again of course. I do think I might be able to help you. to figure a few things out, that you might never have even thought to wonder about before."

"I know we will find each other again," Hailey said, as she ran out the door and out into the street once again. "I shall speak with you again, when I am not about to be late for work." She looked backward, waved and took off running to catch a bus before it pulled away from the corner bus stop.

Rose closed the doors and both she and Doctor ran back inside and down to the library on one of the lower levels. The Doctor immediately began to fling books from a carefully selected shelf, onto a little table in the center of the large room. They landed in a small, but rapidly growing scattered pile. She picked up one of the books and tried to read the cover. She set the book back down carefully onto the table, when she realized that it was in a language she'd never seen before and could she could not read it. She knew that he had collected a massive number of books over the years in many places and for just as many reasons. But many of them were English books that he liked to keep on hand because he tended to have English speaking friends, and since he could read and understand many languages, it didn't matter to him in the least. However none of the books that he had pulled off the shelf were written in anything that looked like any Earth language, let alone anything she could read.

"Doctor," she said, momentarily interrupting his hurried search of the bookshelf. He went right back to his search though, and held up a clearly old, very big and heavy hard covered book, with a worn cover, before setting it down with the others.

"Found it," he exclaimed. He stepped away from the shelf. "Now, what were you trying to tell me?"

"I don't think Hailey is crazy at all, and neither were either of her parents. It's weird, and though you said before that their were no others, I think she may be one of your people. Doctor, what are all those books?"

"Some of them are my old academy textbooks," the Doctor replied. "The rest are books of higher levels of knowledge from my home world. Some of the advanced teachings are contained in these books, as well as a lot of basic information that we all learn by the age of seven. And as for Hailey, Rose I think you are right. Well, mostly right anyway."

"Mostly right?"

"Yes. You see, her father was one of my people. You are right about that. He has to have been. He told her all about my planet, and thought of going back with his family. There was a war of course, and there's no way he would have escaped that. I just wish she had been older when she knew him. perhaps she'd remember more and be able to narrow things down a bit. He probably married a human on Earth though."

"Can that happen?"

"well, I suppose anything could happen. It's a big universe, and there will always be people, of many societies who go against what they would consider typical. In others words, it's not a normal thing, no. But I don't see why he couldn't have done it anyway."

"Do Time Lords ever want to settle down have families and stay in one place?"

"They were not all like me, you know. Most don't spend their lives running like I have. Of course I hope I never stop running and I never have to stay in one place. But many never even left the planet at all. For one to come to Earth and settle here is not that hard to imagine. Perhaps wanted to travel a bit and found this lovely little world. He could have found love here and stayed, until he was called back to fight in the war. Everyone was called back, then."

Rose looked again at the pile of books scattered all over the table. The TARDIS should have translated anything written on the covers, she realized. She picked up the same book she had picked up before and looked again. This time she saw the title written in a way she could understand. Some very old and worn out school text book, dealing the theory of time and space. The Doctor was sitting in an armchair with his feet crossed in front of him and a book on his lap, reading intently. He was clearly busy with a more interest in the thing he had learned in his academy days, than, as far as she had ever heard from him, he had actually even had back in those days in the first place. This strange girl, with a great fondness for bright colors and a special talent for running and jumping and thinking on her feet, had made an impression on him so profound that he was taking the time to read through the old books that had never been interesting enough to inspire him to bother to pay attention in school.

"Why," Rose asked herself out loud as she walked her own room on board to catch up on some reading of her own, "do I have the feeling that if things go his way, we will have a third person traveling with us very soon? This is getting bigger and bigger than we thought."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Important! This chapter, starting from about the middle contains descriptions of abuse toward a woman. Some readers may be offended by the amount of violence in the second half of this chapter, but I don't want to rate the whole story M because of this. This bit is certainly not suitable for anyone under the teenage years. Anyways, just so you know... BE WARNED.**

"Doctor what's happening," Rose shouted over the rattling of nearby objects and the suddenly louder humming and racing of the TARDIS engines. She held on to the console everything fell to the right, and then bounced several times.

""Not sure yet," the Doctor called back from the other side of the controls. "It's trying to follow some kind of distress call or something like that."

"We could end up anywhere, then," Rose said partly with excitement and partly with a certain amount of uncertainty and nervousness.

"Anywhere, and any-when," came the fast and cheerfully reply. "I have no idea where it's trying to take us, but it's more fun that way. Grab that red switch to your left."

"This one?" Rose asked. She was knocked sideways as the ship bumped to the right again, and reached as far as she could to get a firm hold on the switch as she held on tightly to the edge of the console with her other hand.

"Yeah, that one. Pull it all the way down and hold it for a few seconds," the Doctor responded. He was reaching with his right arm keep him hand firmly pressed down on a button barely within his reach, and reaching up with his left arm, to quickly flip several switches near the top. Another hard jolting movement sent Rose falling backward onto the grating of the floor. She pulled herself up as quickly as she could, using the front of the console for balance as the TARDIS continued to shake and rattle around hard. It was flying fast through the time vortex, of it's own accord, trying to get to someone unknown place and time, while it's occupants, struggled to get a handle on it's erratic and near dangerous movement. She reached for the switch once again, that she had not been able to pull before falling hard to the ground, and she tried again. Her hand gripped the red switch with barely the tips of her fingers and she was thrown back again into her knees, but she managed to pull it down as she stumbled Doctor, was thrown off balance as well, during that same hard bump and he fell right over, while struggling to not do exactly that. He pulled himself back up, using the console for stability.

"And...," he pushed up on one final switch and all motion stopped abruptly, "we've landed." He looked at his companion, and stood still for a moment, watching her as she slowly got to her feet once again.

"You alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, fine," she told him. "Although I almost feel motion sick. You okay?"

"Yeah."

"I wonder what that was all about. Any idea where we are?"

"Don't know," the Doctor said. He, had his usual excited about the unknown look on his face as he hurried to the doors. "Let's find out."

The two of them exited quickly but carefully, and looked around to see where they had landed. They were on a sidewalk next to a wide but deserted street, in what looked to be a city's industrial district. They had parked next to a high chain link fence, that went around a large empty parking lot and a two story grey factory building. Across the street and further down the side they stood on, they could see smoke billowing from the tall smoke-stacks of a few manufacturing plants that ran throughout the night. Nearby was a small print shop, and a little place that advertised sign making for a good price and with any sign ready in under seven days. An auto dealership on the corner had left on a flashing sign in the window of its small office, boasting about no interest financing that would approve anyone, on all used cars.

"We're back in London I think," Rose said. "This looks like industrial London. Looks like modern times too."

"You're right," the Doctor said, looking around and thinking and observing. "We are back in London again. It's the end of June, and about three in the morning." His voice lowered in volume a bit and he raised his eyebrows in confusion, trying to think things through. "Why would the TARDIS bring us here? Not to mention at this hour of night, no less."

"The reason for the distress signal must be somewhere around here," Rose said. "I'm going to take a bit of a look around."

"Rose," the Doctor said, and his companion, who was about to walk off, turned to face him again. "That signal my ship picked up from here... it was a telepathic call for help. It can pick up radio distress calls and similar things pretty easily, and if it's so inclined, it will just lock on to them and fly to the source of it. But something with the mental power to send out a call that it can receive, and the will to make it answer and override my control of it, is a potentially scary thing."

"But if it was a distress call, then who or whatever it is, it was calling for help. Someone could need assistance. They might be hurt, or in danger."

"Could be, yes. But it might also be a trap. Be very careful."

"I will be," Rose said. She was about to walk off and take a look around, when a red cargo van came speeding toward them. It run a red light at the intersection beyond the car lot and raced right past them both, as the pair stood wide eyed and startled at it's sudden appearance. Tires squealing on the pavement, the van rounded the next corner and disappeared past the print shop. From within, they could hear someone shouting something loudly but incoherently. The Doctor was off and running immediately after the van, with Rose right behind him.

They went around the same corner the van had taken, stopped to look around, and found themselves, facing the front of a large warehouse building. It was one of many of such buildings on that street. Dim streetlights were shining overhead, but many other lights were burnt out. The whole block gave Rose a feeling of strange foreboding. She didn't like it at all. Night time in a city, could do that to a person. of that fact she was well aware. And why, she wondered, in old American crime movies, did so many of the bodies that turned up dead, happen to turn up near unused warehouses in the middle of the night? The Doctor however, was simply carrying about his business as usual, unphased by the dimness of the street, and the blinking of a streetlight overhead, as it neared burning out. The fact that most of the warehouse building in that row, were run down, boarded up, and had clearly been abandoned for years. They had lost the van as soon as it took off around that corner, and he looked to see any sign of it, hoping he could spot it again, and resume the chase.

"Abandoned warehouses in the dark," Rose said, in a tone she hoped would come off as slight humor. "Could we have ended up anywhere creepier on Earth?"

The Doctor, who had been waiting for any sign of anything unusual, held up his hand to signal her to be quiet for a moment.

"Did you hear that?" he whispered to her. "I heard the sound of a vehicle motor again."

"Come on," he urged, grabbing her by the hand, as he ran again. He pointed to the east. "It came from over that way."

"So, why are we trying to catch up to some van anyway?" Rose asked. "Other than driving like a maniac, I don't see anything odd about it."

"It seems safe to think that the van might have something to do with the distress call," the Doctor responded as they ran. "There doesn't seem to be anything else around here, and that call must have come from somewhere."

They could both hear the engine now, and the night air was shattered by another squeal of breaks. It sounded relatively far away however, and as getting further. The two of them looked at each other with looks of defeat on their faces. Both knew they had lost the van, and would never catch up to it. A new sound caught the attention of them both though. A terrible, pained sound, muted but still obvious, came from someplace they still could not see from where they stood.

"Doctor," Rose cried. She tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. "Did you hear that noise?"

"Yes, I hear it too," the Doctor said, listening for more sound. "It came from the next block over. Somewhere behind those warehouses."

"It sounded like a woman screaming," Rose said. "Sounds like someone is injured."

"This may be the source of our distress signal. Let's go and see what happened. Maybe we can help. Still, we need to be careful though. It could still be a trap."

The two of them ran fast past a couple of old warehouses, until they found a narrow unfenced space between two, and they could walk through. That little shortcut took them right to the alley, with the backs of low roofed buildings on either side of it. That alley was littered with everything from cardboard boxes, soggy from rain, to automobile parts and scarp metal. There were no lights back there and the Doctor held his screwdriver out in front of him, with a light glowing on the top of it, to use it as a flashlight. Rose did much the same with her mobile phone. They looked around, for an injured person or any sign of trouble, but saw no one at all. Rose looked to the left and saw a bright colored shoe poking out from behind a pile of discarded wooden pallets. She then saw one leg of the person wearing that shoe, a blue leg warmer pulled over tight black pants.

"Doctor," Rose said louder than she had intended. "There's someone back here."

Both of them kneeled on the ground next to the pile and saw when looking closer, that someone lay behind it, with a few of the pallets over top of her. It was safe to assume she had accidently pulled them down trying to pull herself up. It was, they could tell, a small framed female. She was now, as far as they knew unconscious or close to it, and lay limp on the gravel. The Doctor stood right back up again, and began to move the discarded wood off of her, while Rose stood holding the light for him.

"We know this girl," the Doctor said quietly. Rose nodded slowly, recognizing her too, but he finished his thought out loud anyway. "It's our friend Hailey Andrews."

He picked the girl up carefully and stood up slowly, holding her in his arms. Hailey was completely unconscious still, just as she had been when they had found her. They had to assume she had been the one screaming moments before. There was no one else around and the voice had certainly been that of a young woman like her. She couldn't have been unconscious for long. She'd been awake not long before. That was promising. The light was dim out in the dark night of course, but they could see so far that her bright red shirt had been torn at one of the sleeves and was hanging off of her left arm. Her hair was a clear mess too. Beyond that, they couldn't tell at that point. They ran back to the parked TARDIS a couple of blocks away, as fast as they safely could with the Doctor carrying Hailey. Rose ran beside him, carrying a a light, and then finally opening the doors of the ship. They hurried inside and she locked the doors behind them.

In the small but advanced medical bay onboard they were able to start to gain a better understanding of what might have happened. Still though it was hard to piece things together. Rose stared in disbelief and the Doctor shook his head in shocked disgust for a few seconds before he began to think of trying to help the injured young woman. Hailey's right eye was bruised and swollen. Her nose was red and bloodied, and her lip was cut. The right sleeve had been half torn from her shirt, and her arm was bare. It was red and blue and clearly had been grabbed and held, very hard and forcefully by someone stronger than herself. Most of the buttons had come off her red top as well and underneath that, she wore only a thin black tank top. The front of her neck was quite red and even a bit purple in places. They could see that clearly due to her embarrassing lack of proper clothing.

"Doctor," Rose said, as soon as she saw that he had finished quickly scanning her. "Is she alright?"

"Yeah," the Doctor replied. He set the hand held medical scanner down on a counter near the bed he'd put Hailey on. "She just just took a bit of a beating and seems to have collapsed more from shock and a bit of a bump on the head than anything else. She should wake up soon, then many she can tell us how she ended up out there."

"Actually," he said after a few seconds pause, "What interests me is how she might have sent that distress call to the TARDIS."

"How do you mean?" Rose asked.

"Well for one thing she didn't turn up injured until after we got the call. She almost certainly had to have been in that van that we were trying to catch up to. The TARDIS was already trying to respond to it, before Hailey would have known where she would end up, even if she was already in trouble then. She was working with time in not exactly the right order of events there for a moment. Then there's the fact that it was a telepathic call."

"So?"

"So, remember I told you that anything that can send such a call has to be a powerful mind? She's far more advanced than I thought she might have been."

"Doctor, there is something that really concerns me too."

"What's that?"

"Well form her obvious injuries, I'm sure she was attacked. It looks like someone punched her a few times in the face, grabbed her arm and held her by the throat."

"I can protect her if I have to," the Doctor said. "I want to ask her to come with us for a while anyway. I just wish we knew what exactly happened to her and why. Oh well, she might be willing to explain more soon."

_A Few Hours Earlier_

Hailey was alone, painting in the living room of her small downtown flat. She finally had a night off work and was glad to enjoy a quiet night to get a few paintings she had started finished. She dipped her paintbrush into the red paint again and began to touch up the grass in a field she had already completed. She had no real idea why she had decided to paint the grass red under two suns shining in the sky above. If her art teacher back in her school years had seen her doing such a thing he'd have given her a long lecture on realism in art. But Hailey Andrews did not always value realism. She loved to paint the things she saw in her head, and the places she traveled to in her dreams, during the times when she actually slept. And she had felt like painting a place where the grass was red and the sky was orange, and two suns shown above.

A bang at the door startled her from her work and she looked at the clock on the wall of the living room, she saw that it was after midnight. She was first surprised and then scared by the noise at the door. She had often thought of moving to a proper apartment building, with a security buzzer in a downstairs entranceway, and several neighbors close by. It would certainly be much safer to live in that sort of place, and she had felt unsafe in her flat a few times since deciding to rent it. But the rent in her place, a tiny three room flat above a second hand shop, with only one other flat down the hall and which anyone could walk upto and bang on the door, was all she could afford to pay. She had a small simple battery powered alarm on her door, and that gave her a fair bit of piece of mind. She supposed that if whomever was outside in the hall did intend to break in, the alarm might wake up the lady who lived in the flat next door and she might call the police. Another bang on the door. Hailey froze where she was standing and listened. It was not just someone outside, trying to get in. Someone was knocking on her door... loudly. She thought again of the lady next door. Her neighbor was an elderly woman, who looked at least seventy. Hailey didn't know her very well at all, but they had stopped to talk in the hall several times. As far as she knew, the lady lived alone, but she was not entirely certain. All she really knew about her is that she was a nice and polite old lady who liked to play her old Mills Brothers, and Frank Sinatra records in the afternoon, and spent a lot of time baking pies and biscuits in her flat. Once in a while she would see Hailey in the hall, offer to bring her over some fresh baking. She was often joking about her brightly colored hair, asking her if she had accidently dipped it into her paints.

The knocking went on. It grew louder. Hailey was concerned by that point. She was no longer thinking about a possible break-in. Burglars after all, did not generally knock on the door of a home they intended to break into. She thought that the lady next door might be at her door at that hour of night. There may have been an accident, or perhaps a fire in the next flat. Perhaps the lady was ill, and was there to ask her to call a relative for her. Thinking that her neighbor might need her help, she hurried to answer the door, nearly tripping over a small table that was in the way, as she did so. She thought of grabbing her cordless phone to bring with her, but decided not to bother running into the bedroom to get it. She was so convinced that she would find an older lady, probably in a dressing gown and slippers at her door, that she was shocked to find a tall young man in jeans and a sports team jacket over a white t-shirt, standing in the hall.

Hailey's heart rate sped up, as she came face to face with the man. He was someone she had hoped to never see again. She'd not seem him in many months and thought he might be out of her life forever. Now, seeing him standing in the hall, leaning confidently against the doorframe with a smile on his face, she looked around for something she might be able to use to defend herself. She could see nothing appropriate and did not want to take her eyes off him for more than a second at a time. She did not trust him in the least.

"Jeff," she said, trying her best to sound bored and interested in his appearance, "What are you doing here? It's after midnight for God's sake."

"I was in the neighborhood," he answered grinning that nasty and condescending grin that used to drive Hailey to frustration.

"I thought you went to jail." Hailey said. Jeff pushed his way past her and walked casually inside the flat.

"I did," he answered. "Got released early though. Out in six months for good behavior. So this is where you're living now? Nice place you have here. Why'd you leave that old place you were at though. That was a decent flat, and there you had a flatmate to help with rent."

"I had to move because your friends kept coming 'round after the cops got you. I don't exactly like to be harassed by a bunch of nitwits who say they want to hurt me on your behalf for calling the police."

"You shouldn't have done it Hailey. You shouldn't called the cops on me. I went to jail because of that."

"You beat me up! What did you think I'd do? Go out with you after work like nothing ever happened and tell everyone I fell and hit a doorknob?"

"We were good together, you know?"

"Yeah, we were once. When I was sixteen I thought we were too. But things went wrong Jeff. You're not the guy I thought you were."

"I love you Hailey. You were probably right to call the police. I was acting like a right lunatic. I think I deserve another chance though. This time I'll get it right."

"That wasn't the first time you snapped and went mad on me," Hailey said. "Three years I put up with smacking me when things didn't go your way, and insulting me all the time to bring me down. I'm flippin' lucky I have high self esteem, or you'd have ruined it, with your endless carrying on about how stupid I am."

"I'm sorry. We can work it out," Jeff answered. He stepped forward and began to back her against a wall.

"You're still young," Hailey said. "You can always find someone else. I don't want to get back together I told you that, that night you phoned from prison."

"Oh come on baby, you need me. You don't have the brains or the talent to be on your own." Jeff grabbed at the shirt she wore over a tank top and pulled her toward him. "What? You think you're little miss independent, high self esteem, don't mess with me, now?" He tried to kiss her but she turned with a look of disgust on her face.

"Yeah, I do think that," she replied, pulling her arm free and tearing her shirt in the process. "Actually, no I don't think that. I know it for a fact." She shoved him backward with both hands, hoping her shaking didn't show. "Now get your rear end outta my flat, before I call the police again."

Jeff walked over to the canvass Hailey had been painting on when he came to the door. he looked at the picture for a moment before turning to her laughing. He reached back with one hand and sent the painting as well as her art supplies, flying across the room.

"So you still do fantasy art then?" He asked, his eyes growing angry at her. It was the same old thing that she had finally had enough of, starting up again in her new flat. For goodness sake, how'd he even get her address? She nodded yes to his question, while still trying to look like he was not scaring her. She picked up her things and put the painting back where it belonged, thankful the paint was dry it and hadn't smeared.

"You should paint realism."

"Don't tell me what to paint. I'll paint and draw what I like. I do realistic art when I feel like it."

"Still though, it's stupid. You know what things are supposed to look like and what's real and what's not. Your not a crazy person like your mother no no grasp on reality. You should paint realistically."

"That style bores me most of the time," Hailey said. "Kind of like our constantly unstable relationship did. Now get out and you leave my mother out of this."

Jeff punched her hard in the face and then before she had even the time to react to it, he punched her again. He hit just as a hard as she remembered. Hailey stood staring at him with a stunned expression, as blood ran from her nose. Her eyes began to water, from her injury.

"Oh look at that," Jeff mocked. "I made you cry again. Crying like a baby. That's something you've always been good at, isn't it?"

"You just hit me in the nose you idiot," Hailey shouted. She reached for a box of tissues on the coffee table, pulled a few out, and held them on her bloody nose. "The eyes water when a person does that. What in God's name did you hit me for?"

"You ruined my life." Jeff answered. He grabbed her arm and squeezed it hard to keep her from freeing herself. When she tried it anyway, he twisted the arm behind her back and caused her to scream and shout and then stop struggling for freedom.

"You ruined your own life," she snapped at him. "And it's not like it's completely ruined anyway. You're only twenty-five. It's not like six months in jail took up too much of your lifetime."

"Get downstairs," was Jeff's only response to that. "A couple friends of mine are outside in Dave's van waiting for us. We are going to go out, have a drink or two and talk like civilized people." He shoved her toward her door, still holding her arm behind her. "I deserve a chance to talk to you. We still have things we need to work out. And you had no right to just up and move without telling me a thing about it."

Hailey tried to get away from him again, but he twisted her arm back harder than before. When she kicked him in the groin, he let go of her and doubled over for a moment in pain. She ran for her bedroom. She wanted to get the telephone and call the police, but he was after her faster than she could shut the door. She was normally so much faster on her feet, but he'd taken a lot out of her with his punches and arm twisting. Her quick thinking and fast motion was half way out the window. He was holding her again in seconds, this time with both hands around her neck. He backed her into a wall, and forced the back of her head into it a few times, causing her head to spin with dizziness, before he turned and walked her backwards out into the hallway. He pressed his fingers into her throat just a bit and she first gagged and then coughed and chocked. She quickened her pace when he quickened his.

It was almost a funny thing, Hailey noticed as she was led down the hall by a suddenly crazed ex lover. She had no idea where she might end up and how bad he and his friends - young men who she knew to sometimes be worse than him - might plan to hurt her. If she got into that van parked outside of the building, she had no doubt that she would find herself in real trouble. Yet instead of fighting with him, or trying to shout and alert anyone that she needed help, the only thing her body would do was continue to walk in a way that would now quite literally save her neck. Her legs were moving almost without her even wishing them too. Her survival instinct had taken over and she could not stop moving, risk a tighter grip against her throat and try to kick him again and run. They came to the top of the stairs he let go of her, turned her forwards by the arm, and shoved her down the sixteen hard tiled steps. She was pulled to her feet by Jeff, who then dragged her by the hand to a parked red van, that was still idling it's motor, while a friend of her ex boyfriend that had once introduced himself to her as Eddie, waited for them.

The inside of the van stunk of beer, and whiskey, and the back seat was damp and sticky. Jeff's two friends had obviously been drinking and one of them was trying to drive drunk. She was not even sure if Jeff himself had had a drink. It hadn't occurred to her to even wonder about that until then. In the time they'd been together, she'd never really known him to drink much. He had always been just a social drinker, who had a couple only now and then, with friends. Goodness knows however, he'd become, by the time she ended it with him, violent enough without drinking a drop. Eddie took off, driving fast away from the building, while Jeff, tried to kiss Hailey against her will. She turned her head to avoid his wet lips on hers. He slammed her head into the small window beside her, and it bounced of the metal of the inside wall. He tried again to kiss her, and in disgust, and anger, she bit his lip he forced it against hers. Jeff jumped back startled and then promptly slapped her face a few times as hard as he could.

Eddie, far too drunk to even keep the van driving straight, swerved back and forth across the lines of a deserted bridge. The third man riding with them, who Hailey had never seen before, laughed as the vehicle came dangerously close to the guardrail. Jeff punched her and grabbed at her clothing with clear aggression as she still refused to kiss him. He held her by the hair and the third man managed to hit her a few times in the stomach, over the back of the front seat. He was screaming something about protecting his friend from a no good woman such as her. She alternated between fearing that the men would rape her, that they would beat her to death, that one of them might have a weapon, or that the van might go off the bridge into the deep and cold river.

_Help me! _She shouted in her head, without making a motion or a sound out loud. She had no idea in the least who she was calling to, but it seemed the thing to do. Survival instinct had taken over again, this time in a different way then before, and she was using something she didn't know she had at all. _Please send help! _Her call for help was not directed she somehow knew, at a person per-say, but instead out into time itself, where it could be received by a consciousness greater than that of any living person. She felt a presence in her own mind then, of that same powerful and infinitely intelligent consciousness. She had little time to focus on that presence before more blows to her body broke her concentration, but she had gotten a sense of it's nature. Not a dangerous mental presence at all. It had picked up her distress call before her mind was drawn away from it. Jeff and his nameless friend punched her until she was nearly passed out from pain and shock and fright, but as she faded slowly from awareness, she felt something else happening that she could not begin, in her hazy and scare state to explain to herself. The van had stopped for a moment in the old industrial district, and she felt herself thrown out the side sliding door.


	5. Chapter 5

Rose Tyler and the Doctor were sitting on chairs in the medical bay waiting for Hailey to wake up. There was nothing they could do at that point but wait, and hope that when she did wake up again, she would be alright. Nothing to worry about, the Doctor had said, the worst must have been a bump on the head but not hard enough to do more than just knock her out. Rose couldn't help but worry though anyway. And even if she was fine and well and back on her feet in a day or two, what about Hailey's emotional state?

"Looks like she's starting to wake up," the Doctor said. "See, she wasn't out for long, just like I said."

"Anything I can do?"

"No, no, nothing anyone can or should do. She'll just wake up, and then I suppose she might need a glass of water."

They both stepped closer to the bed Hailey was laying on asleep, and waited and hoped she'd fully wake up in a minute and say something to them. Her eyes remained closed, but she moved a little, indicating that she was at least partly awake. The Doctor took several sudden and careless steps backward, and backed right into the counter behind him. Rose turned around in alarm to look at him. On his face she saw a look of mildly startled shock. He shut his eyes and shook his head a little as if to try to get rid of ringing in his ears. He raised his hands to each side of his head, and his look of simple but quite harmless shock turned to one of discomfort and pain. Rose stepped toward him quickly but stayed a couple of steps back, and stood without touching him.

"Doctor? Are you alright?" She cried. "What's happened?"

"She's... shouting in my head," the Doctor replied, as he stepped forward. Once he got over the initial shock of what had happened he felt far more able to think of what to do. "Her mental voice is yelling so loudly at me."

"What? You mean like some kind of mental attack?" Rose was growing scared, but the Doctor just waved his arm in dismiss of her concern over such a thing and stepped closer to Hailey's bed.

"She isn't attacking me, no" he said, much calmer now. "She doesn't mean it. She has no idea she's doing that?" He spoke to the now nearly consciousness girl quietly, trying to to get her to stop panicking. She had no idea where she was and if a certain man called Jeff was still poised and ready to give her some real trouble. The last thing she could remember was a tumble down a flight of stairs, a van being driven dangerously, furious punches to her face, and falling onto a pile of hard and splintery wood. There was something else though that she feared. Something that made no clear sense because her mind had no way to explain it in her current state. He picked up only on the general feeling of the fear it caused her. She was quite simply too afraid of a strange combination of things, to let herself fully wake up and look around.

"Okay," he said to her quietly. "You're fine. You ready to wake up?"

"What.. where...?" Hailey mumbled slowly and only half coherently, as she opened her eyes and look around a bit.

"Hello," the Doctor said cheerfully, with a smile on his face. "Welcome back."

"Doctor?" Hailey said, "You must have somehow found me... I remember... thank you for... Hey, how'd you know where to..." She slowly tried to sit herself up.

"Alright, careful," the Doctor said. Rose stood nearby ready to help however she could. "You can sit up if you want to, but we will do this nice and slowly. You've had quite the physical and mental shock."

"How did you end up behind that warehouse?" Rose asked when Hailey was sitting up by herself on the bed, and it was clear that she was feeling okay to stay upright and could think reasonably and talk. "Do you actually remember how that happened?"

"Yeah," Hailey answered. "Well I remember some anyway."

She told them about Jeff forcing his way into her flat and how, he'd eventually made her go outside with him and get into the van. She explained that she's been beaten up by the man, and eventually thrown out into the alley.

"He knows where I live now," she said. "I have no idea what I'm going to do about that guy. Just when I thought I had everything figured out, I have to figure it all out again."

"There's time for all that," the Doctor said. "You will be safe in here."

"What? But I can't stay here with you two."

"Sure you can. Travel with us for a while."

"Doctor, I..." Hailey said, shaking slightly. "I appreciate the offer but I really can't travel with you in your time machine. As great as I think it would be sometimes to see all of time and space, my greatest fear at this precise second, is that this impossible machine will take off moving."

"Wait!" She cried suddenly. She froze in position and her eyes opened wide. "Are we still in one place now? We haven't taken off anywhere have we?"

"No. The TARDIS is still in the place I parked it before we found you out there. It's a couple blocks from the old warehouses. I'm concerned now though, and with good reason, that those men will come back to this area, and find it. They will never be able to get in, but still.. Better to move to the other side of the city. less chance of anyone making a connection between you and it."

"But... I..."

"Do you feel up to getting up and walking a bit?" Rose asked. Hailey nodded, still scared that the Doctor would do something that she didn't want him to do. She did however see his point as well, and the idea of Jeff being able to figure out where she went scared her even more. She carefully got up and walked slowly with the other two, out into the hallway. They made it to the console room as fast as they dared to move. The Doctor began to pull switches and press buttons. The ship began to make a noise. It stopped almost as soon as it had started to do that, and fell silent again. Rose ran to the door and looked outside.

"Nice parking job," she laughed. "Right between a phone booth and a park bench. You got it in so straight."

"Lots and lots of years to practice," the Doctor answered laughing.

"We... moved?" Hailey asked. She had been sitting on a seat in the console room, looking more than a little nervous, but now looked up in surprise.

"Oh yes. From one side of the city to the other. We disappeared from where we were and then reappeared over here."

Hailey got up slowly and went to look outside at the slowly rising sun over a city park.

"Wow, we really did move. And it didn't feel like we went anywhere." Hailey looked around at both of the others, trying to hide a look of embarrassment. "I don't know why the idea of flying around in here scared me as much as it does. I mean... it seems exciting at the same time, a machine that can traverse time and space. It feels familiar to me. I remember my father had a similar machine, but I can barely recall it. All I really know is that it looked from outside like a garden shed, and I have a vague memory of running around in long winding hallways inside it once. Of course I have also often thought I have two things confused in my head, and they are of two different places. My logical human mind tells me that I can not have seen so much space inside a shed, and that a police box cannot take a person to another place." She paused for a moment and looked out over the quiet park at sunrise. A bird began to sing in a tree nearby. "Maybe I'm just having a hard time really getting that reality can be more then we think it can be. I used to dream about a reality bigger than what I knew of, but to imagine and to really see, are two different things."

For the first time since she had gotten up, Hailey noticed how ripped up her now almost buttonless, button down top was.

"There is a wardrobe full of clothes, down the hall and to your left, and then left again and right," The doctor said, when he turned to see her studying her ripping clothing in embarrassment. "You can find something in there that you would like to wear."

"I'll came and help you look," Rose put in.

"Oh god," Hailey groaned, looking in the mirror in the large wardrobe room. She tried to fix her hair with one hand. "I look worse than I thought I might. I guess that would explain why everything is so sore."

"If you don't mine my asking," Rose said tactfully, while digging through a wooden trunk labeled 'Lady's clothing 1960's - 2170's, "does this sort of thing happen often?"

"Not beatings from ex-boyfriends, no," Hailey answered. "Thankfully, not. That creep had better not try to find me again though."

"The Doctor will protect you from him, and from anything else, to the best of his ability, " Rose said. She looked up from the truck, and looked the slightly younger woman in the eyes. "You are of such importance to him; One he seems to already have sworn to take a certain kind of protectiveness towards."

"Why would I be so important to him?" Hailey questioned. "I'm just one simple person. I'm sure he can't save us all."

"No, he can't," responded Rose, who looked down at the floor for a moment sadly. "Always wishes he could save them all, and always tries to, but I've seen him fail so many times. he's always upset about it too. Anyway, some times certain people seem to become the highest priority and if that happened they are the one he will work to protect above all others, even himself. I am one of those people and you it seems you might be too."

"But why?"

"Not sure yet. Only the Doctor knows that, and honestly I think he's still working on figuring you out."

"Does it have anything to do with a planet known as Gallifrey?"

"Quite possibly." Rose answered. She could sense Hailey's nervous discomfort and decided to let the subject die out of their conversation. She reached back into the trunk and found something at the bottom of all the neatly folded clothes.

"Now this is something right in your style," she said holding up a rainbow stripped long sweater with short sleeves.

"Hey, that's perfect," Hailey answered.

"Thought so. It'll match your pants okay too. We can probably go and pack up some things from your flat soon."

"You must see so much out there," Hailey said. She pulled off her ripped red shirt and pulled the striped sweater over her tank top. She sat on top of a clothing trunk and pulled the fingers of her right hand through her hair, trying to get the knots out. "Infinite possibilities of time and space. Everything that ever has been will be or might have been if just one thing had been different in the past. So many planets and societies all at different stage and different paths of evolution. Do you have a hairbrush I could borrow?"

"We have been to so many places and seen so many things, but have seen only a tiny piece of all there is," Rose was saying to Hailey as the two young women entered the console room once again. "There is just so much out there. You could not see everything if you lived for ten thousand years. The Doctor told me that once last year. Once, a couple of months ago, we went to this planet at other side of the galaxy, in the fifty-ninth century. It was a world of mostly water, inhabited by a wonderful and very friendly non-violent race of people. They had been at war with another race for hundreds of years, and the Doctor ended it for both sides in a matter of hours, without another person getting killed. That's why he travels and why I travel with him. To see as many of the wonders of the universe as end up seeing, and to help where we can."

The Doctor was laying on the floor, with his feet sticking put from under the console. Both women recognized his running shoes and the bottoms of his brown pin-stripped pant legs.

"What is he doing under there?" Hailey mused?

"Don't know," Rose replied. "Likely simple maintenence."

"Yeah, just routine stuff. Making a few adjustments to the navigation." The Doctor slid himself out from under the console and got right to his feet. He tapped the console a couple of times. "There we go. Should be working perfectly now. Lovely sweater. You look like a walking rainbow. Hailey, there is a little tiny sort of thing I need to mention to you."

"What's that?" She asked. Her eyes opened slightly wider and she grew a fair bit uneasy. Had she done something wrong and perhaps offended someone? Had something she had done somehow caused trouble? She did not know him very well at all of course, and had never been one to care what most people thought of her. But for some reason, she cared what he thought. The idea that she might have done something to cause him trouble, bothered her. Whatever it was though, she made a point of not letting on to her worry. She looked him in the eyes calmly and waited to hear what he would say next.

"When we brought you in here, I scanned you for injuries," the Doctor said. "The scanner only detected things like bruises and a little harmless bump on the head. It did detect something interesting though. It seems you have two hearts."

"Yeah," Hailey answered. She sat down on the seat near the console. "I'd have mentioned that, but I didn't think it had anything to do with much of anything relevant."

"Oh, it's very very relevant. A very important detail," the Doctor said, in excitement.

"We think, me and some of the social workers I had over the years, that that's the biggest reason I never got adopted," Hailey said slowly. She paused for a moment realizing that would not make any sense at all if she didn't explain more about her life, and so she went on. "Soon after my father went off to that war, my mother ended up in the mental institution I mentioned before. When I was about four or five, her parental rights were terminated, and I was said to be adoptable. I acted out for the first year or so that I was introduced to couples, not really wanting a new set of parents. I wanted _my _parents. Eventually though they didn't seem so much my mum and dad anymore and the idea of my own family again sounded great, even if it was a new family. I tried to impress the couples, and many of them did seem to like me. But they always picked a different child instead. It seems it was often more a practical concern than anything else. My mother was in an institution with a serious mental illness, that they worried I might have one day too. My father had no file anywhere at all. He almost didn't seem to exist within the computer system. No medical records, nothing on him. My medical file scared them, on top of everything else. Who wants to raise a daughter with a medically insane birth mother and a heart condition that even medical science could never explain. For all anyone knew it would kill me by the age of eight, or I would be ill my whole life."

"I wasn't sick though," she continued after a moment in which they all just stared at each other unsure what to say. "In fact, I've very rarely ever been ill with much of anything. When I have been, I've gotten better so fast. whatever the case, I hardly think my heart condition ever caused me trouble."

"It wouldn't," the Doctor answered. "And it not a medical condition. It's simply a normal physical trait of Time Lords."

"I've heard that name somewhere before, " Hailey mused. She sat quietly for a moment with her eyes half closed in thought. "But where did I hear it now, I wonder. I don't remember."

"In the alley that night you first saw us," Rose reminded her. "The Doctor was chasing after that man that tried to steal your wallet, and you yelled a message to him about Gallifrey and Time Lords, from the rooftop."

"Oh yes," Hailey said. "I remember that now"

"So," she looked back at the Doctor, "You really are a from a planet called Gallifrey then? I wasn't just going momentarily crazy?"

"No, you were right. Somehow in your mind you were able to recall information about a place you had never seen or knew anything about. That's an ability of the Time Lords actually. The universe and all that is ever or could ever have been in it, is pretty much stored in our heads somehow. Billions of planets and people, and everything that could ever happen anywhere based on any choice anyone might make at any time... all able to be accessed if we look for it."

"So, kind of like a computer hard drive then? With everything that time could ever create stored and ready to be searched for?"

"Well that would be a very simple way to put it, and it's far more complicated than that, but yeah, sort of."

"So what does any of this have to do with me? How does any of this explain anything."

"Your father was one of my people," the Doctor answered. He paused for a moment to choose his words and tone very carefully. "Therefore so are you, through him."

Hailey only sat and stared for a very long moment. Her eyes opened wider in shock and then closed for a second or two as if trying to blink away the final moments of a dream. She opened them again, and just stared at him again with a blank look on her face.

"Sorry... what...?" she finally said slowly, struggling for words.

"When you said it sometimes seemed as if your father wasn't human, that's because he wasn't," the Doctor said.

"So then... you're saying I'm from another planet?"

"No, no, no. You're technically from Earth. After all, you were born on this planet. But you are also, by all rights not really what would be considered human." Hailey blinked at him, confused but listening and taking it all in. The Doctor, seeing that she was now intently listening to what he was saying went on explaining. "Now this is where it starts to get all weird and complicated. There have been very few Time Lords that have ever mated with humans and produced children. Little is known about what such a child would actually be. The most I can say is that it's thought that it go either way and be more one race or the other. We look the same a humans so the physical appearance would not be any huge matter. But it's the mind and physiology that goes more in one direction or the other. You, from what I am fast beginning to understand could be a lot like your father. Now, a human mind could never hold our view of time and space and possibility. But if your mind wired itself from birth to do it, of course it could do so. There is so much more you can learn. Our people, from a very early age begin to learn so much, that you would never have learned. You could be so much more one day."

"What's wrong with just being what I already am now?" Hailey asked a little more sharply than she had intended to speak. She was stunned by everything he had told her, and shaking slightly from it all. If ever there was a time she doubted her sanity completely and feared suffering the same fate as her mother, she was currently in that moment. She knew that he didn't mean to imply that there was anything at all wrong with being human, but she couldn't help, in her current state, feeling insulted anyway.

"Nothing wrong with what you already are," the Doctor said. The look on his eyes told her that he understood her feelings. "But, don't you want to see how far you could go one day?"

"I... I really don't know. This is all so new to me. I don;t know what to think of anything yet."

"That's okay. It will take a little time to get used to the idea. It's not everyday a person finds out they quite literally have a second planet of origin."

"So what happens now?"

"It all depends on you. As a child you should have, by right, have gone to study at the academy. But you were on Earth, partly human, and the time war was about to destroy everything of home. For you, circumstances were far from what generally happens. No matter now, however. I'm glad you never got to go back home, like you said your father once had planned. A few years in the academy would have made you so much different than you are today. Of course you'd know far more, but you're still so... _you. _You could have become so different and not in a good way at all."

Hailey only sat quietly and listened, without saying anything. She had no idea what to say, and what might be the correct response to everything he was saying to her. Rose stood nearby as well and listened without saying anything.

"If you want, I could likely teach you a fair bit myself," the Doctor said. "For so many years every young Time Lord was educated and trained within the academy, as I said I see no great loss for you there. Any you could be the only one to learn and train entirely outside of the system in as long as the common records openly state. This is not a bad thing either, but you are also older than one would normally be when they start to learn everything. It's a good thing actually, I think. Of course you would with us, running and traveling and seeing anything there is to see. You'd get used to the idea fast."

"It's not a bad deal at all," Rose said to her. "There really is so much out there."

"Okay," Hailey said. She had finally managed to find her voice and regain some of her composure. She was still dumbfounded to a point beyond what she ever thought possible, but she had to admit she was curious. "You can give me book to read from time to time."

"Sounds like a fair place to start," the Doctor said.

He said nothing more after that, and walked away from where he had been standing, near the console. He looked sadly at both his companion of a long time, and his now apparent new one with a strange sadness in his eyes, then moved to leave the room altogether. It seemed almost as an after thought that he turned back to Rose and asked her to find and assign Hailey a room to use while on board, and to be sure that room contained among other obvious and usual bedroom furniture, a writing desk.

"Did I say something wrong?" Hailey asked. She stood by the doors, pulled them open again and looked out over the park. "I can't exactly be excited about all of this yet, or look too forward to it all. I'm still waiting to wake up from this dream anytime now, and spend the next day wondering what ever I might possibly have eaten before bed that could give me such a weird dream. Of course I know you and the Doctor are real and that this box exists... but me, not completely a human being?"

"It's nothing you said," Rose answered. "I think he's happy that you want to learn and are willing to at least try. He is the last of his people though, and so it makes sense I suppose that it would bother him sometimes to have to think of his home again."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Please pardon the length of time it took me to update this story. I've been trying to get some more work done with some of my original fiction, as well as having started a new job recently. Also I've had a bit of writers block on this one and am trying to work out the best direction in which to take the story from here. I will update again as soon as I can. As always, please R&R. **

The Doctor was once again underneath the TARDIS console working on a few repairs. This time he had pulled out a buddle of the wiring from under there and was very busy poking around inside the bottom of the console with the sonic screwdriver. Rose had gone off into the kitchen for some reason or another and had still not returned. Hailey sat in a chair in the console room with her legs crossed under her and a big heavy book on her lap. She was intently reading the book that she had found outside the door of her assigned room when she had gotten up earlier that day.

'The Concise Understanding of Time Lord Society as a Race of Non-interference,' was printed in faded golden lettering on it's cover. She had at first groaned out loud standing in the doorway of her room, when she first found herself greeted by a book with such a title. Just reading the cover was enough to bore her into insanity. She had reflected for a moment on how she had thought it might be fun to learn more her non-human side. She had her doubts though as she bent to pick up the textbook. She had no idea what so ever how she was going to force herself to read a book that was at least seven hundred pages long, with a title like that, and must have been such a drag that it looked as though it had not been touched in centuries. As an artist, she'd have loved to get her hands on a book featuring some of Gallifrey's great works of art, or perhaps one on it's fashions through the ages. This book though seemed like it might have been given to her by the Doctor as either a form of mental torture, or as the worst kind of practical joke. With another groan she sat down at her room's simple white writing desk and opened the book to the first page, determined to ask the Doctor if when she finally got done the book in likely many long months, she could study Gallifrain art next.

When she began reading however, she was greatly surprised at how interested she actually became in the subject matter. Centuries and centuries, many thousands of years worth of history from a race she had never known existed at all until recently, was documented for the race's future generations. The text printed on the pages spoke of a society that looked all through time itself, understood the very nature of a such an abstract and yet very real and true concept. They had slowly gained the power to understand everything that ever was or could have been, and everything that ever could and would be and this intrigued her greatly. It went into some details on how this race had feared its own capacity of greatness with time and imposed limits upon itself through the power of a president who they would, right to the end, still hold in high regard. She read about the idea of a race that stood looking out ever everything and anything, with a hundred outcomes flashing through there minds and the will to let whatever was to happen, simply be. After reading two hundred pages of their history, wars, victories, defeats, and travels through time and space, she had picked up the book and taken it with her when she went to find the others and let them know she had not vanished without a trace.

"Your people are actually pretty cool," she said to the Doctor, who's feet still were still the only part of him that was not currently hidden. He slid out from underneath the console and sat for a moment on the metal grated floor while he began trying to untangle the mess of colored wires he was holding in one hand. He looked at the mess in confusion and frowned slightly. He took his glasses from a pocket of his jacket and put them on.

"Pretty cool, is not exactly the way I would ever have thought of to describe them," he said thoughtfully.

"But they were," Hailey answered. "At least as far as I can see so far."

The Doctor frowned even more and then raised an eyebrow slightly at her. He looked her in the eyes briefly and then went right back to working with the tangled wiring.

"Sorry," Hailey said. "I know you are the last of them now and all, but I do think that it was a cool race from what I've read so far. I just thought that you might want to hear that I think you're people were pretty great. Actually, I guess that's a bit immature a way to say it right? Still, really amazing and wonderful though."

"It really depends I suppose," the Doctor said. He put the wires back down on the floor and gave her his full attention. "There will be so much for you to learn. I realized last night that it would be more than I had thought when I first proposed that I might teach you. Anyway yeah... It really depends."

"Depends on what? You mean to say that not all of them are as great as the book made it seem. I thought, from what I read that they seemed a bit like what human must think of as almost all knowing and all seeing, with the power to change the course of time. I can only imagine all the good your people could have done all over the universe, if you were permitted to involve yourselves in the affairs of others."

"Not even close. Out society still made a lot of mistakes. We may have been able to see every possible outcome of an event, but without knowing which one was actually best or correct still leaves room for so much error. The writers of that particular book, it's always seemed to me, were likely the sort to brag often and feel as if they were part of the great species in the universe." The Doctor lowered his eyes for a moment, and looked down at the floor in thought, before his slowly finished speaking his thoughts out loud. "Actually superiority was not at all an uncommon feeling among many of the Time Lords, when comparing ourselves to others in the universe."

"So in other words, you come from a race of stuffy ego-maniacs?"

"Well something a bit like that I suppose, yes. Once again though, it really depends."

"But you're not that way at all. As far as I can remember my dad wasn't either. I was under the impression the Time Lords were the good guys in the universe. Kind of like overseers of anything good and right."

"It depends on the Time Lord," the Doctor said, speaking slowly and thinking carefully about the words he chose to explain things. "Think of the human race for a moment."

"Okay..."

"All throughout the human race you will find all kinds of people. From the very best and most loving and kind, to the most nasty and terrible. Some will not hesitate to take a life for no reason at all, while others hold the lives of others in the highest regard."

"True. So you're saying it's kind of the same thing with Time Lords then. There were both good ones and bad ones?"

"Oh yes, of course," The Doctor said. He sat silently on the floor near the buddle of wire for a moment and thought of what to say next. "Just like within the human race, no one person is ever truly good or truly bad. We all have a chance of becoming far more of one or the other depending on the circumstances we meet in our lives and the way we choose to deal with them."

"So not really as different from humans as it might seem," Hailey mused. She sat lost in thought, with the book still open on her lap. "So all the same basic feelings and thoughts and all that then too? I guess it's not so strange that my father wanted to spend his life with my mother."

"Not impossible no, but it is a strange and very uncommon thing for a Time Lord to love a human. Not many even made it to Earth. No real reason to come unless you like to explore the galaxy, and many didn't."

"Were you allowed to? Allowed to go off and explore other planets and get to know the people, I mean."

"As long as the law of noninterference was followed yes. Most never really saw the point though. They didn't see the point of running all across space and through time, and often wondered why I never stopped."

"Of course you've never stopped running," Hailey said. "If you have all of space, and any part of time you choose to see and experience, who could stay home!"

"Exactly," the Doctor exclaimed. Rose walked back into the room, and he looked at her grinning. "She actually gets it too! One more reason to be glad we found this girl."

Rose and the Doctor began excitedly discussing taking off again that day and going off to find out where and when they might end up next. Hailey was still not too sure about the idea of traveling anywhere, but she had to admit the idea of seeing other worlds and points in history or the future was intriguing. She put the book down on the floor and listened as the two of them discussed the possibility sending the TARDIS into the solar tides and letting the force of the motion carry them for miles and miles just to see where that sent them.

"Remember the last time we did something like that?" the Doctor asked. Rose grinned and leaned on the console laughing.

"Yeah. Wasn't that the day we ended up on the planet where it was illegal to repress emotions? Those big blue people with the spiky white hair?"

"That was the one yeah. They banned emotional repression on that planet in the year 4768 after some man cried so hard after years of letting it build up, that his head exploded."

"I really don't think a man's head exploded from crying after repressing it for years Doctor," Rose laughed.

"Neither do I," the Doctor answered. "But you know how stories go. Over years and years, they get bigger and bigger. And if someone doesn't have any idea what happened, they might just make it up and a world will believe that story."

"Was that the Planet Benthar Prime?" Hailey asked suddenly.

"Yes, I think it was," the Doctor answered. Rose looked greatly surprised, but he was not so much.

"The one planet in the known universe to ever ban the repression of emotions," Hailey paused for a moment and thought intently. "More than it's strange law though, it's known for it's large amount of the element Alutainium, which is found only in the Benthar star system, and will never be known on Earth."

"Hailey how did you do that?" the Doctor asked. He got up, walked over and kneeled in front of her, looking at her intently.

"What do you mean, how'd I do that," Hailey asked, her voice puzzled. "Surely you can do the very same thing."

"I can do that. Provided of course there is a mental reference stored in... Never mind. We have plenty of time to get into all those technicalities. What I really want to know though is in your own words, what exactly did you do?"

"Well I read within the first few pages of that 'Introduction to Gallifrain Academy Studies' you left me last night, that a Time Lord should when their mind is powerful enough, be able to call to mind dates and locations of most anything that's known to their society. It said that one should be fully capable of recognizing a place and time, just from a name, unique feature or short look around, if the information is known Time Lord society. I heard you two talking about a place, and I decided to see if I could do that to. So I tried to search my mental files, like the book said to do, and see if I could recall a name of a place I've never been. I'm surprised I actually got it right!"

"Your father would have had all the memories that were ever known to Time Lord Society, stored in his mind," the Doctor explained. "We inherit the knowledge of our parents, so it's no surprise at all that you are able to access knowledge like that. He had the collective understanding of all Time Lords, and you through genetics, have his memories of it."

"Okay," Hailey said, slightly confused now. "So, I wasn't really accessing the collective knowledge that belonged to Gallifrey, like it talked about in the book?"

"Not quite. I think you were accessing your genetic memory. Not a big difference though really. You will be able to do it the other way one day, but it's really the same thing just kind of... well think bigger. Actually that's little Gallifrain children begin to learn how to use their minds - By practicing recalling our parents knowledge."

"What was a family like on your planet?" Hailey asked. She was suddenly curious.

"Well just like with humans, you have your better ones and your not so nice ones," the Doctor answered. "Children by their very nature were driven to be curious about time and space and most loved anything to do with those matters from an age just old enough to understand some of it. The mind was a great source of interest as well and we loved to learn how our very minds worked. that's where we would begin to practice recalling the memories our parents had either from their own experience or from their knowledge of all of time and space. We were taught that at such an early age. Many parents loved their children a lot, just like humans with their children. Every child was wanted and every parent pretty much set aside several years of their lives to devote to the task of raising the child and focusing on few other big tasks, such as employment, while children were little. So a child was very independent but also very well taken care of. When we went off to school, we rarely saw our families again for many years. Some short visits home a few times a year and that was all we saw them until adulthood."

"That's sad," Hailey said. "And no one ever said a thing about it? No mother ever refused and kept her child with her?"

"Our society was so stuck on traditions so old even we could barely say when they came about and why. Sometimes I honestly think it never occurred to anyone to ever bother to refuse. The rest of the time, I think many people were just so hung up on doing things the way they always had, they they did it knowing full well what they were doing."

"One little bit of a memory I have form very early in my childhood, is of my father planning to return home one day with me and my mother. He had said that he would love for me to be able to attend school. 'A proper school, with the right idea of how to teach anything' he said. My mother seemed to like the idea of leaving Earth forever and I don't think she really understood that my Dad meant to send me off and rarely see me much. I guess every parent wants their child to have the best education and be the best they can be. He had her pretty sold on the idea that his planet had a better education system."

"Some human parents will sell their house, find new jobs and move half way across the country to get their children into a better school," the Doctor remarked. "Never before though have I heard of one willing to move to another planet to do so."

"My mother just wasn't happy here on Earth. From what I've pieced together over the years, my Dad was different from anyone she'd ever met before, and he promised her so much more than anyone else ever could. They loved each other and me very much, but also he amazed and intrigued her. She trusted him and his judgment far more then she trusted herself."

"I wish I could remember my father," Hailey continued speaking after a few long silent moments. "He left when I was so little that all I'll ever have are a few bits and pieces of memories."

"I think you could remember," the Doctor said. He was speaking slowly and thinking carefully of his words, trying not to confuse or scare her. "Every memory of everything we ever experience is stored in our minds. Most humans as young children cannot retain many of their memories. The mind doesn;t seem to know what to do with the memories exactly, so it stores them in a place where they cannot be reached again. The Time Lord mind though can recall memories a bit better. You would have your early childhood experiences among your memories, but that part of your mind, is kind of turned off. You are of course also human, after all. I do believe I might be able to help you to retrieve the memories for early life."

Hailey sat silently for a moment, looking down at her folded knees. She, who had always talked on and on about anything that was mentioned to or asked of her, was at a complete loss for words. She had no idea what to say, or how to react, or even what to think. More and more of the reality of everything that had happened in her life in the very short time, was hitting home for her and bit at a time. She had to admit to herself she still had no idea what to make of any of it.

Until only a couple of days before, (at least she thought it was only a couple of days. Time seemed to almost stop in the TRADIS and she could barely tell,) she had been a simple and ordinary struggling artist working in an ordinary bar, to support her ordinary life. Sure her life had it's darker sides to it; whose did not? But until she found herself rescued from the trouble that one of her life's darker sides had caused her, by such an unlikely man as the Doctor, everything had been so run of the mill. She wondered if she liked it better the old way, or what she was coming to think of as the new way. She could not even be certain. The little blue police box, that was impossibly big inside, was going to take off that day into space, and fly to some unimaginable world that she knew she would be able to recognize if she only focused again on using a gift she had just discovered.

She asked herself again, and this time with much more serious consideration, if she really wanted to go off exploring the stars. Of course the Doctor had invited her to go along, and actually even pretty much seemed insistent that she do, but she was also that if she outright refused he would not push the issue to much. She wanted to keep on studying though. She wanted to learn so much more, and she as much as she could, while she was doing so. Or did she? It was still so confusing and overwhelming.

"Doctor," she said after a few silent moments of contemplating her own thoughts. "Can I possibly go back to my apartment for a few minutes today? I really should pick up a few of my things, and I need my art supplies so I can work on more paintings. While I'm there, I also fully intend to call the police about Jeff and his friends." She could hardly believe her own words. She was actually making plans to take off. She was actually putting her life and fate fully in the hand of this man she barely knew. Mentally she shrugged off her doubts far easier than she would ever have thought possible. Well, she had always dreamed of a real adventure.

"Of course," the Doctor said. "We will take you back there before we leave Earth."

"It's amazing the way you can just talk so casually about leaving Earth," Hailey said with Laughter and disbelief in her wide open eyes. "Just the same way most people might talk about how they will stop and get a cup of coffee before they drive to another city."

"Well I've been doing this for a while," he answered laughing.

"Doctor, I think we should go with her up to her apartment," Rose said. She was looking at him urgently. "That Jeff guy is still out there. For that matter so are his friends. The police would not have any idea yet that they've done anything wrong. If he wants to go and cause more trouble he, or any of them, could be hanging around near her place waiting for her to get home."

"You're right. That's a good point. Okay, Hailey we will all go. Besides, Rose and I can help you pack."

"Thanks, both of you," Hailey smiled. She hurried over to sit on the floor near the console, picked up the bundle of colored wires and began to work on carefully separating them all into groups of each color.

~~~~DWDWDW~~~

Hailey sat in the comfortable sitting room on board the TARDIS with another of the books the Doctor had left for her, open in her lap. The sitting room, with it's comfortable red modern chairs, the clearly antique style furniture, and shelves that held so very many various strange items from all over the universe along the far wall, has fast become one of her favorite places to go to read. She read a another line of page forty-seven and then realized she had already read that entire page already and the page following it. She flipped forward in the book trying to relocate the correct place to read from, but soon gave up on her reading and set the book aside on a little end table next to her chair. She was too excited to read a thing. Her mind was racing at what felt like several miles a second and she could barely low it down, let alone force it to comprehend a complicated textbook. She thought that perhaps she might enjoy painting instead of studying for the moment. Yes, she decided, a nice hot shower and and then she would start a new painting. She was glad to have had an opportunity to pick up her painting supplies along with the rest of her needed things during her quick stop at her apartment, that morning. At least she thought it was still the same day. Once again she found it so hard to tell, how much time had gone by and what day it actually was.

She stepped out of the shower a short time later, dressed herself in a hot pink knitted sweater, and a pair of tight fitting black denim shorts, that she pulled overtop of heavy grey tights with big blue polka-dots all over them. She towel dried her hair and then with it still partly wet, styled it but left it loose. She looked in the mirror and thought of changing her hair colors. she'd had blue and pink streaks for quite some time and wondered if perhaps it was time for something different. Maybe she should dye it all back to it's natural black, and do the bangs green... or possibly a nice bright purple, she mused. She looked at her face and saw the bruises had almost completely healed already. She'd always been glad of her strange tendency to heal from most injuries faster than it seems others often did, but this time she was more grateful for it than ever. There was a certain degree of embarrassment that she could not help but feel, when it came to clearly visible and obvious injury caused by a violent assault. She put on her usual thick black eyeliner, and run back into her room's adjoining bathroom, to find her red lipstick.

Hailey was on the way back out of her bedroom, carrying her brightly colored running shoes, in one hand, when she came face to face with the Doctor. Barely paying attention, and her mind still filled with racing, excited thoughts, she nearly banged into him.

"Sorry," she mumbled, looking down, sure he could be annoyed at her carelessness.

"No reason to be sorry," the Doctor replied, grinning. "No one got hurt. No galaxies imploded suddenly in upon themselves, or anything dangerous like that."

"So what are you thinking?" he asked, as she walked along beside him.

"I don't think words can express that," Hailey answered, smiling so much she felt like a completely nieve and immature moron.

"Try anyway then," the Doctor said. They came to the library and he motioned for her to walk in with him if she wanted to. She'd passed that room several times so far in her travels around the impossibly large time-ship. She'd read the sign over the door and knew it was a library, but as much as she'd wanted to, she'd never dared to take a peek inside. She could have, of course. She knew no one would mind her looking around some of the common areas of the ship. But she still didn't feel quite at home on board. She felt like a somewhat annoying and certainly a very inconvenient guest, that really should stay out of places she'd not been told to enter.

"Amazing. Unbelievable." She fumbled for words, as she tried her best to respond to his question about her thoughts. "I can hardly believe we were really on another planet, but that definitely looked like nothing we'd see on Earth. I mean... there were three moons up in the sky and one of them had rings around it. That's so weird. I'm still shocked about running into those creatures though." Hailey paused for a minute and then said, "Doctor, what were those things anyway? I'm not sure if they were intelligent or not."

"Semi-intelligent. Those were basically just animals, part of the local wildlife. But they are a species of more intelligence than any animal you would find on earth, such a dog or a cat."

"So somewhere between being simple creatures and ever evolving beings, then?"

"Yeah."

"So Doctor, why exactly did they suddenly decide to turn and come running after us? i can't say I've ever had the experience of being chased by a pack of seven foot tall, six legged beasts."

"Well they were trying to run us off the edge of the cliff in front of us of course," the Doctor said with amazing calmness. His tine was simple matter of fact. Nothing more or less than that. Hailey's eyes flew open wide both in shock at the idea of almost being run right over the edge of a steep cliff, and at the Doctor's calm assessment of such a possibility.

"It's not so uncommon of a thing really to hunt prey in that way," the Doctor went on, still perfectly 's though that some of the early humans hunted that way. There are still a few of the more primitive races scattered throughout the universe that do that. Running prey off of cliffs so that it falls to the rocks below is certainly an effective way of killing it. What I find so interesting though is that a pack of animals did that. It's normally people who do. Perhaps those creatures are capable of way day making tools."

"Well their front sets of legs and feet did seem like they could function kind of like arms and hands." Hailey said, becoming caught up in her own theorizing and logical thinking. "That's one prerequisite for the development of simple technical skill; the species must have some form of hands and thumbs. It certainly is an interesting... Wait. We could have fallen to to a horrible death, all three of us. We were almost killed, and here we are now, both of us just casually discussing science, and you marveling at how fascinating those things hunting technique is. It was us they were hunting!"

Hailey walked into the library with the Doctor. He was going on explaining still in his calm and objective tone, some of his observations about the creatures on the planet they'd recently returned from, but she was not really paying full attention to him. She looked around the room. The ceiling was as high as any other on the ship, and reached far over her head. This ceiling though was beautifully painted with shining silver specks of light over it's dark blue surface. It reminded her of a sky full of stars in the dark of night away from the city. The room was enormous and seemed to go on forever in any direction. Rows and rows of well designed wooden shelves were neatly placed a comfortable distance apart and contained more books than she would dare to begin to count. There were a few more of the same overstuffed red chairs that were in the sitting room here and there throughout the room. She looked around while standing in one place.

"Nice work today Hailey," said Rose, who had been unseen kneeling on the floor behind a bookshelf, intently hunting for some specific book, while listening to the conversation that had continued as the other two walked in. She got up and went to sit on a chair close to the one Hailey was in. "Of course, leave it to you to climb up a tree to find a find a way out of that mess. Throwing those melons down at them certainly scared them away. Glad to see you didn't fall out of the tree though."

"She wouldn't have fallen," the Doctor said, with confidence. "Hailey can climb almost anything. We once saw her scale a rooftop remember?"

"Trees are mostly pretty easy," Hailey said laughing. I still can't believe it though. Another planet far from home and actually inhabited. My god, there must be so much out there that no one back home will ever believe really exists at all. I mean, it;s one thing to think about it and imagine what it must be like to travel to far off places, but it really is another to see it."

"Staying with us for awhile then?" The Doctor asked, hopefully.

"Yes!" Hailey exclaimed. "If you both still want me too, I would be so happy to travel around more. I know it's actually pretty dangerous. I saw that for myself today, but still it's amazing."

The young woman sat down in one of the chairs and simply let her mind wander for a few moments. It went over the events of the day a few times replaying the whole incredible adventure, and then she began to daydream of all other possible things that may be seem somewhere out in space and in time.

"Hailey," the Doctor's voice brought her slowly back to the present.

"Yes?"

"You never did answer the question I asked you yesterday. I normally wouldn't be concerned at all about such a thing, but this matter is somewhat important."

"Sorry," Hailey said, confused. "What question didn't I answer?"

"Do you want to remember far more about your father? That would mean as well being able to recall more of his own memories."

Hailey thought again about this. She had completely avoided the question the last time, though she did know it was important. The idea of actually knowing more than she always had, more than she had even been told before that she ever would, was of course a good thing. But it also made her nervous.

"Yes," she said with confidence. "I do want to be able to remember."

The Doctor kneeled in front of the chair she was sitting in and gently placed both of his hands on either side of her head. Hailey's eyes grew wide in unreasonable anxiety and she threw her head back, shaking herself free.

"Don't worry," the Doctor said. "It won't hurt."

"No no, I just..." Hailey muttered both to herself and to the Doctor and his companion. "That's not it at all. I..."

The Doctor just sat on the floor silently, baffled by his new friend's fear and feeling guilty about the possibility that he might have harmed her. As much as he didn;t like to admit to such a thing, he did not actually have a complete grasp on any understanding of human thoughts, emotions and reasoning. Time Lords and humans really were very similar but still he was so often both worried by and embarrassed at how much went over his head, when it came to human companions.

"Did someone hurt you while you were younger?" Rose asked. Hailey slowly nodded her head in agreement and then looked at her folded knees and the tip of one of her shoes, in clear embarrassment.

"It's nothing huge really," she said. "I don't know why it bothers me. In one home I lived in when I was about twelve or thirteen, a home for troubled girls, the housemother used to like to grab my hair and pull it hard, to make me listen to her."

"That's a terrible thing to do," Rose said, more than a little annoyed at the idea of someone trusted to look after young people, hurting one of them deliberately.

"I think she was mostly wanted to humiliate me more than anything else," Hailey went on. "She didn't like me. Most of the girls in the home had a problem with her and her attitude that we all had too many problems due to either coming from broken homes, or having no parents at all, to even be of much use to anyone. She used to discourage thoughts of good careers or happy marriages, saying those things were not attainable to most of us. She implied so often that we should just get used to the idea of working in some fast food place and hope to not marry drug addicts. A life lacking in any real pride and what most would call any real success, was all we might ever have, she used to say. She'd grin at us in a too-sweet little clearly condescending grin, and tell us all we were going to be less than other people only because of our parents mistakes. Now, all the rest of the girls used to put up with that nonsense. I think most of then sadly believed every single word of it. But I told her so often to stop tearing us all down and give us all a little hope and credit. Once in a while when I'd confront her at the dinner table in front of the rest of the girl, they'd say they agreed with me. She started to pull my hair so hard it hurt and try to make me cry in front of the others just so I'd look bad and she'd look scarier."

Hailey sat quiet for a moment looking down at the floor and feeling miserable with embarrassment at being so bothered now by such a thing. The housemother she'd known at that time was not someone she;d thought of in the years since she left that home and moved on to the next. Why she wondered, resisting the urge to shake her head in bewilderment, would the Doctor wish to yank her by the hair until she cried in pain, and surprise and defeat. Why would he want to make her look small and silly and weak? She couldn't explain it, but still she felt awful.

"I'm sorry," she said to both the Doctor and Rose. "I know this has nothing to do with you. I'm just kind of messed up sometimes."

"I'd never hurt you." the Doctor said.

"I know, I know," Hailey answered. "I just... never mind. I need to stop being so stupid and panicky."

"Do you still want to remember?"

"Yes, of course I do."


	7. Chapter 7

_The sound of dishes breaking. Shouting echoed though the dark hallway and up the staircase. Hailey could hear the voices of the man and the girl downstairs in the kitchen. He man was yelling in rage again and the girl, without a care or a thought of her own safety, was yelling right back at him. She she never shout or talk back to the man of th house when he told her what to do, but the girl, Miranda, had rarely been known to care for such logic. The sound of a smack, so loud it was heard by the child lurking at the top of the stairs. She shook with fright and wondered again why she'd even been born at all. There was no place for her in the world just like there was none for the girl in the kitchen. Another smack and then a thump. The sound of someone's, presumably the girl's, head bumping hard against the wall. _

_ "Listen to me. Stop being such a little idiot and listen!" The familiar middle aged male voice boomed over the loud rattling of a faulty air conditioner. The distinct sound of someone winded and gasping for breath, made it's way upstairs._

_ "Stop hitting me," Miranda was gasping as loud as she could. "I'd actually listen to a nice and considerate and loving person, but I won't listen to the demands of the man who beats on children." More loud and violent blows._

_ The child on the stairs crept forward and crawled on her hands and knees into the closet at end of the hall nearest the stairs. _

_ "I've broken down young people like you lots of times, before. I will break you to. I'll crush you like a bug one day, and you'll listen to every god forsaken word I say just because you'll know I'll hit you otherwise." The man's voice screamed._

_ "You think I've never been hit before I came here," the girl shouted back. "I've fought blow for blow with my own stepfather since the age of eleven. Either go stuff yourself or go ahead and kill me, because that's the only way I'll break like your wife and daughter did."_

_ "How dare you! You foolish, sick little dog. You're going to get it now!"_

_ The child upstairs hid inside the linin closet with her knees against her chest, shaking in terror and helplessness. She could hear the sounds of punches and screams and a body falling hard to the floor time and again. When she heard the front door slam and a car engine firing up, she hurried to her feet, climbed out of the closet, and stood in the hallway shaking on knees that she helplessly with would boldly support her weight. _

_ The older girl, the one that had been fighting with the man in the kitchen, climbed to the top of the staircase with the front of her shirt and her face covered in the blood from her nose, and doubled over gasping to catch her breath._

_ "I'm, taking off tomorrow," she said, as she wiped the blood from her moth with a wet rag. "I have to go. It's either leave or drop dead as a teenager. I'm going to drop you off with Mrs. Harris after school before I leave town. No way I'm leaving you here another day. And she'd better do something about that lunatic too. Go and pack, Hailey. I'll stash your suitcase outside in the bushes and we'll pick it up on the way to meet the bus tomorrow. " _

_ A door slammed downstairs and heavy, angry footsteps stopped their way up the stairs._

Hailey sat upright in her bed, with a rapid heartbeat and a body tense with panic. She looked around at the dark red walls that surrounded her, and down at the comfortable bed with it's blue covers, that she sat on. Her eyes moved to the white desk in the corner and the little white dresser next to it. As she clearly recognized her room on board the TARDIS, she shook off the nightmare and let herself fall back onto the bed in relief. She was amazed at how quickly the time ship had come to feel like a place of safety for her. She felt silly for dreaming of an earlier time in her life,and even sillier for falling asleep in what must have been the middle of the day. She didn't even sleep very often - now of a sudden she was dozing off during the daytime! The Gallifrain history book she'd been reading lay open beside her on the bed. She shook her head, both to shake off the dream and her own confusion over the time. She shut her eyes for a moment and tried to remember the last thing she'd read in the book. Her mind wandered to a picture that she had imagined the past day, that she wished to paint. With her eyes closed she envisioned colors and perspective and tried to plan her new painting. Perhaps she'd begin it later. Her mind slowly wandered back to the horrible dream she'd had.

A knock at the door of the room, sent her pulse racing again. She didn't move and barely breathed. For a moment she was convinced that a very angry, violent, and dangerous man was right on the other side of that door. She forced herself to think within reason. Of course there wasn't anyone of that sort outside. In fact it didn't seem like there was anyone out there at all. She'd only impinged the knocking. She was still half asleep. Another light knock, at the door. She slowly sat herself back up again.

"Hailey," called the voice of a harmless female. "Are you in there. It's Rose."

"Yeah," Hailey called back, feeling even sillier by that time. She got up off her bed. "Come on in."

"Sorry," Hailey mumbled as Rose sat down at the desk and looked hopelessly at the stack of books on the top of it. "I was in here reading and I guess I fell asleep in the middle of the day. That was weird I must say. I've never done that before." Rose only laughed slightly and put down the book she'd been looking at.

"It's the lack of any real sense of true time when we travel," she said. "No set pattern to night and day, hours, time-zones. We still get tired of course, but our bodies have no idea when to sleep. Around here it seems best to just sleep when you're tired."

"Must be even weider for you," Hailey said. "You actually sleep for about eight hours a night like a normal person, I'd imagine. I'm just some weirdo insomniac that doesn't even get tired at all more than a couple times a week, and then sleeps only a couple hours."

"You aren't a weirdo," Rose said. "It's like the Doctor says. It's because of your Time Lord side that you don't sleep much."

"I can still barely even think about that," Hailey said. "I still can't get my mind to accept that I'm not really just some human girl."

"It does explain a lot of your physical traits though," Rose Answered. She paused a moment and then said laughing, "Except perhaps for your ability to jump so high and climb onto almost anything. I asked him about that once. He said he has no idea but they sure don't see many Time Lords scaling the tops of buildings and scrambling up trees."

"Of course not," Hailey replied. "That has everything to do with years of practicing."

"So you taught yourself, or were taught by someone, to climb and jump like that?"

"Of course. I taught myself to do it mostly. I always loved to climb as a child, and I could jump pretty well. I was great at moving fast. When I got into my teen years, I just kind of ended up turning climbing and jumping into an athletic art form or something. I used to climb onto roofs and things for fun. That day I first met you two, when that mugger almost robbed me, I just decided to make for the roof because I'd done things like that so many times just for the heck of it, why not use it to make a get away."

"I was actually pretty relieved when I learned that that's not some Time Lord trait as well. It's great to hear that climbing onto roofs like that is something anyone could probably learn. I love traveling with the Doctor very much, but sometimes it's still hard to wrap my mind around the whole alien idea. I don't think I'd what to find out his people have this great athletic ability too."

"Do you ever forget he's not actually human?" Hailey asked.

"All the time, yeah," replied Rose. She got up from the desk and went to sit with her friend on the bed. The first year or so that we traveled together I almost forgot entirely that he wasn't like me. He seemed so human. A little strange at times, but what person isn't a bit strange? It was so easy just to think of him as an odd man with a crazy time machine. He looks human of course so it's pretty easy to miss the fact hat he isn't." She laughed a little and then said, "I once told him I think he looks human. He remarked that no he doesn't human, I look Time Lord. I suppose it's all about perspective. Anyway, after he regenerated, it was a bit harder to forget that he wasn't a human being. I still do so often..."

"Wait, sorry, when he what?" Hailey had stumbled upon something, through their conversation, that she had never learned the definition of yet."

"Never mind. I had just assumed you'd learned about that in your studies already. It's probably covered in a more advanced book or something. I don't think I could even begin to explain that to you. "

"Do you ever have dreams about real life events?" Hailey suddenly asked. She was still so troubled by her dream.

"Sometimes, yeah," Rose replied. "I guess if something really stuck in you head it;s possible to dream of it happening just how it really happened. Why? Did you dream something like that?"

"Yes. It was about someone I knew years ago, when I was little. When I was eight years old I was sent to live in the home of this couple, the Martins. They worked for the government taking care of children and teenagers that had nowhere else to go. Anyways, they had a daughter of their own who was older and already out of the house. I met her a few times, and I just thought she was pretty scary back then. I later came to realize that she had a lot of issues. In any case, there was me and this other girl, called Miranda living in the house with them. Miranda was way older than me, fifteen I think. And she was wild and daring and tough. She used to get into so many fights at school, and she was picked up by the police more than once for small crimes like shoplifting. I'd hear about all this a lot of nights when Mr. Martin used to rant at her about it and threaten her with physical harm over it at the dinner table."

"I often heard that Miranda didn't really like anybody. She was unshakable and untouchable and mean, just to protect herself from emotional harm. But for some reason she liked me. I was like her, I guess that's why. She told me once that her birth mother had thrown her into a garbage bin as a newborn, and they never did figure out who her father was. I guess she was adopted once but that couple started to have its own troubles within a few years and when they split up in a few years her mother remarried and that man decided to get physically nasty to her, while her mother gave up on trying to stop him. So she grew up in this horrible violent house where she felt so unwanted."

"According to so many people, she could only look out for herself and not for anyone else. But she looked out for me. I was told once by my social worker, not to trust or count on Miranda, but I always did just that. Everyone knew she wouldn't harm an eight year old, but they never thought she could actually care to protect me from anything. I used to climb into her bed when I had nightmares. That's how we became friends. When I first moved to that home, I had a horrible dream that same night. She ran down the hall to my room and brought me back to hers, so she could protect me from the nightmares. The next day decided to punish me for knocking over a vase by mistake. He hit me once in the back of the head, and she threw a coffee mug at him from across the room. Of course they got into it then. They always did that. It was weird. They say children are pretty helpless when attacked, but she was hardly a child. He'd hit her and she'd hit right back. He used to beat her black and blue and there was not much she could do against him, but she'd try anyway."

"I still remember the stories we'd read together. She was seven years older, but she'd never really learned to read very well at all. I read very well for my age, and we used to read older children's books together. I read science fiction and fantasy books with her a lot. I used to tell her I thought that such things could be real to an extent, out there somewhere. She used to say that the world and the kind of life we were meant to live, would crush my dreams one day, but she hoped I'd defy the odds on that fact."

"Do you ever keep in touch with her still?" Rose asked. Hailey shook her head sadly.

"No," she said. "I used to. We wrote letters to each other once in a while after I was moved to a new place the day she dropped me off with the social worker and demanded I be moved. She ran away from the Martins. She was sick of the violence. The workers had no idea what was going on in that house of course, but she finally decided she had to let them know. She couldn't just stay in the system any more, but she also couldn't just leave me in that house. She had gone to live with her aunt in a little town hours away, wrote to me and told me she'd actually let her stay. It was looking for a while like her life was working out well and Miranda, the closest thing I'd ever had to a sister was actually happy for the first time in her life. I suppose that things must have been going on though that ever her aunt never knew the extent of because I got a letter from Miranda's Aunt Paula a few years ago after not really hearing much in a few years. She said that Miranda had been murdered in London and they think it was over drug money."

"That's awful," Rose remarked, disgusted by the sort of things it seemed Hailey was in one way or another influenced by in her life. Hailey's eyes were slightly teary now, thinking about her childhood friend having died, and about the violence in the Martin house. She wiped her eyes lightly with the back of one hand and smeared black make-up over on of her checks. Looking at the back of her hand, which was slightly smeared with it as well, she thought to look toward the mirror on the back of the door to her bathroom, which she had left open.

"My goodness," she said, slightly embarrassed. "What a mess. I've smudged my eyeliner pretty badly."

"You don't need to wear all that black eyeliner anyway," Rose remarked. She was prepared to go into the speech she'd heard her school friends use years before when they tried to give each other beauty advice. But things didn't go in the direction she had been anticipating.

"Of course not," Hailey said. "Yeah yeah, I know. That whole thing, I'm pretty as I am and I could try to look more 'girlish.' But why? Why not use a look I like to use. Besides I don't know all of the looks these days." She sat back down on her bed and said, "You are far better with make up and stuff then I am."

"I could teach you some things," Rose answered. "Just for fun I mean, not because you need to change anything. It's fun to learn new make-up tips though. I used to work in a shop. Make-up, certain styles of fashion, and even shoes kind of became my area of knowledge."

"Why'd you give up that job? Did you just want to move on to something else?"

"Not exactly no. I liked working there quite a lot. It was a nice job and the pay wasn't bad at all. The shop, a whole big three story department store, kind of blew up last year. It left a whole bunch of people suddenly without our jobs."

"What?" Hailey exclaimed. "That's horrible. You weren't inside at the time were you? Was anyone in there?"

"I don't think so," Rose replied. "The shop was closed at the time thank goodness."

"Did they ever figure out how it happened? Was it a bomb or something like that, or more like just something wrong with the heating or the wiring?"

"The Doctor blew the shop up," Rose answered. Hailey almost fell backwards right off the bed and onto the floor. She was shocked both at the idea of him doing something like that, though she knew there must have been a very good reason behind it, and at her friend's calm statement of that fact.

"Do I even want to know why?" She asked, not sure she really did.

"No," Rose replied, laughing slightly. "Probably not, actually. It was a crazy day though. it was a normal workday like any other when I met him for the first time. He was doing what he normally does, saving the earth and all that, and then not even an hour later the whole building went up in flames from an explosion. My life after that was never the same. Certainly never boring or typical again."

"Okay I must admit I'm curious. Why did he go and blow the place up? What does that have to do with saving a planet?"

"The Earth, beginning with London, was about to be invaded by creatures made of plastic. Well I suppose they weren't exactly creatures. Technically they were not what we would normally call alive. More like very advanced thought control technology with some degree of free thought. Anyway, I think he blew the shop up while trying to blow up the relay up on the roof, that was controlling the plastic things."

"Wow, " Hailey remarked. "If I were anyone else, I would never believe that one."

"Neither would I," Rose answered. Both of young women laughed.

**A/N; Okey that chapter was short I know, but that looked like a good place to end it. No much in the way of action in that one, but I like to write a lot of conversation at times to. The next chapter will probably be a lot more of that kind of thing, and then it should if the plan goes as I'm thinking now get a bit more action-ish. **


	8. Chapter 8

** So sorry, for the slow updates on this story. Well nevertheless... Chapter 8. And I will try my best to have another one up this week. This is also going to be a shorter chapter, but I think I will write a longer one soon. **

Hailey wandered around within the seemingly empty time-ship, carrying a recently completed sketched drawing in her hand. She'd been busy drawing in her room, after a short sleep. She was slightly embarrassed to admit even to herself that she'd dozed off unintentionally on her bed once again on top of the covers and fully dressed, after a long study session. She wondered what it was that had woken her up from her sleep. She thought perhaps it had been the dream she'd had. Not a horrible and frightful dream of the past, like so many she'd had before; but still vivid nevertheless. No, she told herself as she thought it over. It wasn't the dream at all. it was something else. The silence on the ship! Yes of course, that was it. She couldn't hear sound of the lightly humming engines that had been so often present constantly for what seemed like so long. The sound never bothered her at all. Most of the time she hardly noticed it at all. yet the silence that was left without it on board was strange and that's what had woken her. even when parked the ship's engines, as far as she'd so far noticed made seemed to make some sound when heard from the inside. It was still as well. They'd landed somewhere. She only hoped that Rose and the Doctor were not either off on some grand adventure without her, or stuck in some kind of trouble. The latter, she admitted with some reluctance was not at all unlikely. The Doctor and trouble, did seem to go hand and hand most of the time. He certainly did seem to have an uncanny knack for finding it. And, as she was very quickly learning, his companions tended to so easily get dragged right on into it.

"Doctor?" she called, walking down the hallway on the way to the console room. "Rose? Are you two in here?" She was growing concerned.

"In here," the Doctor's voice called as she wandered slowly past the door of the library, and past a few rooms whose purpose and content she had no idea of.

"Sorry. In where?" Hailey called back, confused by the doors.

Finally she found the Doctor in a room cluttered with various electronic gadgets and gizmos - Some of them clearly broken and all of them thrown in chaos onto overcrowded metal shelving units. With his back to her and the door, he was rummaging through a drawer of one of the cabinets against one wall.

"What is all this stuff?" Hailey asked. Curiously she picked up a small rectangular object, with two little round buttons on the top of it, from the shelf nearest the door. She held the object in front of her and turned it over in her hands, looking for details along the bottom.

"Careful with that," the Doctor said. "That's a portable atomic particle destabilizer." Hailey very carefully put the little object back onto the shelf.

"What exactly does an atomic particle destabilizer do?" she asked. She reached over and picked up a small round red metal ball with it's loose wires dangling from the bottom.

"I'm not exactly sure," the Doctor replied. That sort of thing is best tested in a wide open, uninhabited area, on non-living matter. I've been meaning to run tests with it and try to find a use for it, but I've never done it." He gave her a distracted look. "It's on my somewhat longer than it should be, to-do list. And be careful with that too. It's broken as you can see, but it still carries a bit of an electrical charge."

"What is this place? Where did all this stuff come from?"

"It came from various places throughout anywhere and everywhere. Odd and ends and bits and pieces salvaged from alien civilizations, and different points in history. Anything I end up with that looks useful I hold on to and toss it in here. You never know when something might be useful."

"So what are you actually looking for in here now? Perhaps I can help you find it."

"You know..." the Doctor said slowly, "I have no idea what I was actually looking for in here now. Oh well, it couldn't have been important."

"Doctor, there's something I wanted to show you and Rose."

"Rose isn't here today. It's just us on board for now."

"Seriously?" Hailey questioned in obvious surprise. "How can someone just take off for the day while traveling the universe? Where exactly are we parked anyway?"

"Cardiff, in April of the year 2006," replied the Doctor. "We'll be here for a couple of days, so Rose decided to catch a train to London to spend some time with her mother back home."

"What's so exciting about modern day Cardiff? I wouldn't think it would have much of huge interest when you have all of time and space to visit."

"Nothing terribly exciting about it at all, though one never knows when something interesting will come up anywhere. We simply need to refuel."

The Doctor walked back toward the console room with Hailey walking beside him. He turned a couple of switches on the console and looked over the readout on the monitor.

"The TARDIS needs fuel?" Hailey asked. "What does it run on anyway? I'd imagine it needs something a little different than simple unleaded petrol from any old filling station."

"She runs on time energy," the Doctor explained. "There's a remnant of a rift in time and space, that was closed years ago. It's perfectly harmless to people and goes completely unnoticed by anyone passing by it. But the energy it gives off is a perfect source of fuel for a time ship, like this one. Park on top of it and let it refill. Just like putting in a car."

"Cool," Hailey remarked. She sat down on the little bench near the console, and crossed one leg underneath her. "So what do we do while it's refueling?"

"May as well go out and see the city. We'll stop for lunch and you can show me what you wanted me to see. It is something you can show in a public place, I'd assume." The Doctor pulled Hailey to her feet, full of excitement to get going.

"Yes, of course," his young companion said. "It's a drawing I did today."

Hailey pulled open the doors and stepped outside, into a downpour. Heavy rained pelted from the sky in torrents of cold water. Her hair was in only seconds soaked and flattened to her head, and the red sweater she wore over a blue undershirt was drenched from the rain. She stood in a puddle that soaked her running shoes.

"Lovely weather today," she muttered in sarcasm. "Of course why am I not surprised? gotta love springtime in this part of the world."

"Well you know what they say about April showers," the Doctor replied. He stepped out of the TARDIS with his brown trench coat buttoned up, and carrying a red raincoat for Hailey.

"Yeah. April showers bring depression, and bad hair days," Hailey said while she rolled her eyes. She took the raincoat from him, though it would do little good for her already water logged clothes, and put it on. "Thanks."

They ran through the rain.

"Well this is something we are certainly getting good at," Hailey said laughing. "All the running." She dodged a large and deep puddle in the middle of the street as they ran across. The Doctor followed her path to the other side of the road. The ran into a cafe, and sat down at a table next to the window, watching people pass by.

"I drew this today," Hailey said. She took a folded piece of sketching paper from her pocket. "I had a dream, a very clear one, and finally the picture stayed vivid enough to draw when I woke up." She handed him the drawing.

The Doctor looked intently at the quickly done sketch for a moment, unsure what he was meant to notice about it. She had handed him a sketch of some young man with wavy dark hair dressed in a buttoned shirt and a casual wind breaker style jacket. He looked at her for a second about to ask about the drawing, when a thought occurred to him. He looked at the picture again and then he thought he understood.

"Is this..?"

"My father. I dreamed about a trip we took years ago, when I was perhaps just barely walking. It wasn't really a dream though. it was a memory of things from early in my life. My mother and I and him went to this little village on the coast. It was a terrible trip for the most part, right from the beginning. You know, one of those vacations where you wonder if you might not have been better off staying home, but you stay determined to have a good time anyway because you are after all on holidays to do exactly that. On the trip out there, about half way from home, the car ended up with a flat tire. So of course there's my father out on the side of the highway with a jack and a wrench changing the tire while my mother stands outside the car with me and I was just a baby then. I was tired and grumpy and it was so hot outside. At least twenty cars passed us that day and not one stopped to at least offer to help him so we could back back on the road and out of the sun faster. We had a few things tied onto the roof of the car and at some point the straps let go. We nearly caused a wreck when things fell onto the road in front of other drivers. The motel lost our reservation and almost didn't get a room. Twice while we were on our holiday the same young man hit on my mother, right in front of my father." Hailey shook her head and laughed a bit at the long forgotten and recently recalled memory of the disastrous vacation.

"It was no better on the way back home either. If you can believe it, we had another flat tire. My mother drove for a while, took a wrong turn and got lost. My parents got into one of their very rare arguments. My Dad was pulled over by the police due to some mix up. It wasn't all bad though. it was on that same beach we went to that my Dad tried to explain time and space and dimensions to me and my mother laughed at his rambling on to a baby. When we first arrived out at the motel, we went down to the edge of the water. My dad ran along the beach holding me up in the air over his head. It felt like I was flying and I laughed. My Mum panicked though and yelled at him."

The Doctor looked at the picture again and then handed it back. Hailey folded it and shoved it back into a pocket.

"I thought perhaps..." she said slowly. She took a sip of her coffee and then looked at him with determination. "Did you know him Doctor? I mean, both of you are from the same planet. I thought perhaps you might have known him personally." She put her hand over her mouth and gasped with embarrassed shock, while giggling a little at her own verbalized thoughts. "I never realized until I actually said that out loud, but I guess that sounds so nieve and silly, to think that just because two people are from the same huge planet..."

"That's not silly. It was a thought and worth asking. I'm sorry thouhg. There were millions of Time Lords. It's not as though we all ever met one another. Just like you will never know everyone in London just because they live in the same place. I suppose there is always a chance I met him casually at some point a very long time ago. There's always that chance. But for us casually meetings spaced out over centuries are a slightly more complicated thing. If he were to have regenerated since, I'd never recognize him now."

"What does that mean exactly?" Hailey asked. She leaned slightly over the table and lowered her voice, certain that it would not go over well to be overheard discussing alien physiology and survival in a downtown cafe.

"Skip ahead if you want, to chapter seventeen in your biology textbook. In the simplest way I can think of to give a quick answer though, a final last resort used by a dying Time Lord to save him or herself," the Doctor answered. "Anyway, about your dream memories, do you have a lot of such dreams these days?"

"Well yes, but of course I don't sleep a lot. I guess though relative to the amount I do sleep, I have a lot of dreams about past events from very early life. I have so many more memories now and for that I must certainly thank you. Still though I suppose there are things I don't understand."

"Such as?"

"Well like such as why my mother went into that mental hospital and why she was still there years later. What kind of a mother is so broken up over the loss of her husband that she can;t even be a mother anymore and lets her child bounce from abusive home, an even worse home for sixteen god forsaken years, while she sends not even a birthday card." Hailey shoved her coffee cup aside with one hand and sat for a moment gasping for breath and swallowing heartbroken tears, and hardly noticing the fact that her coffee was slipped out of the cup and onto the wooden tabletop.

"I'm sorry," she finally said. She shook her head in embarrassment, and stared out the window as a bus rattled past. She reached for a napkin and wiped up the spill, in badly hidden frustration "Never cry, and never show feelings. That's what I was taught years back in my ninth home. Emotions are a weakness we don't need." She sipped from her coffee cup again, picked up her menu and took a couple of breaths. "Okay, I'm better now."

"But emotions are one of the human race's greatest strengths," the Doctor exclaimed in shocked surprise at Hailey's long enforces negative view on the matter. "Emotions regulate a sense of conscience, of right and wrong. Lose your emotions and you become potentially no better than perhaps a cyberman. We certainly don't want that, because you Hailey Andrews have always had the potential for such compassion."

"Doctor what's a cyberman?" Hailey asked.

"You haven't met one yet and I hope you never do. Human brains implanted into feelingless machines that know only to convert the whole world into more like themselves. They are driven by a deluded idea that they are superior to all other races, and their lack of any emotional feeling stops them from ever realizing that their actions are wrong. It's the very lack of human emotion that makes them so dangerous."

"Traveling with you, one certainly does land in some right big messes then. I always thought it was dangerous, but I suppose I really haven't seen anything yet."

"Nope. Nothing yet. Hopefully we can keep it that way." The Doctor made light of the whole situation and of the conversation, but he had to admit to himself that he was concerned. He worried about Halley's sudden anger toward her mother. he was concerned for her resentment of clearly unresolved issues. Mostly though he worried over what she had said about the dangers and how much worse she realized things could get around him. He wondered for the first time if perhaps saving her from one dangerous situation just to throw her into another one was not the most senseless move he'd ever made. If anything ever happened to her, he know he would only blame himself for it- and of course it was his interfering in the affairs of others that had gotten the whole issue started in the first place.

"I'm surprised you're reading so intently all the time and studying as hard as you are. In all honesty and fairness I didn't think you'd want to." He spoke again to make conversation; to cover his concerns and doubts with works and idle chatter.

"Why not?"

"Well because I can't see why anyone would. Who actually wants to read boring old books like that and write essays and all that I never did understand back in my childhood. I still don't! In my mind back then, school was just something we did because that's what we'd always done and everyone did. It's strange to meet an interested learner. I was a terrible student when I learned that same material."

Hailey's mouth dropped in surprised disbelief. "How can you have been a terrible student in school? I thought you must have been top of any class. You're utterly brilliant. How can the smartest person I've ever met in my life have been terrible in school?"

"I'm not that smart," the Doctor said. "Don't tell this to any humans we happen to meet, but I'm only brilliant like that by human standards. By the standards of Time Lords I'm not all that impressive. In my young days I was a pretty big disaster at the academy. Barely managed to graduate with any sort of a grade at all. My instructors used to spend a lot of time shaking their heads and going on about how they knew I could do better. On visiting days my parents would come up to visit and they would carry on about how they had no idea what I'd do with myself. My father wanted me to be some big man in government, and my mother said I could have been anything I wanted to be. They shook their heads and said I really could stand to try harder."

"And did you try harder?"

"Well, yes... no... I don't know," The Doctor said because he turned the conversation in a new but related direction. "You are brilliant Hailey. "I was annoyed at first at the thought of your father planning to throw you right into the Academy. Little Earth girl, raised to be human until then suddenly in this big school with children who were barely children at all as you know them. Well... I thought it was a right nasty idea. But then I saw how much you love those old books and how much you love information, and ideas, and theory. I don;t think you would have only actually loved getting to see home. You might have actually _liked _school too."

"What was it like, Doctor? Your home I mean. Sure I can read about it in old textbooks. I can even find pictures and everything. But I want to hear what it was really like. What did people think of their jobs? Did people get married? Did families order take-out on Friday nights because no one wants to bother with dinner? Were the teenagers out partying and getting into trouble? You know, that kind of thing. The simple stuff."

"I will tell you all of that. really I will, I promise. Just not right now. Ask me later." 

Hailey was about to protest, but she was distracted by the cafe's main door suddenly flying open followed by the sound of a scream.

The cafe was not busy that afternoon, but the few people that wee scattered around at tables here and there, looked up in alarm. It was not after all every day, that someone ran into a Cardiff cafe in an afternoon rainstorm screaming. A man jumped from his seat at a table in the middle of the room and ran to the aide of the lady who had screamed. She stood in the doorway with rainwater dripping from her hair. The man quickly backed away from her, with a look of concerned fear on his face. Two teenage girls tried next to approach and help the woman. The only stared blankly first at her then at each other, when the heard her muffled response to their questions of what had happened and whether someone was hurt.

"He's been murdered!" the woman in the doorway yelled suddenly, demanding the attention of everyone in the place. "I got into his cab and found him dead." her eyes went to the young man who had backed away from her in fear, and she yelled at him and anyone else who would listen. "I tell you, I'm not crazy and I'm not on drugs. I saw the thing that must have done it running away from the car. And that thing was no human being!"

"What do you mean it was no human?" Hailey asked, breaking the momentary shocked silence that had fallen. "Who's been murdered?"

"No man could have ever moved like that," the lady said, shaking. "Knees bent the wrong way 'round and the thing had a tail. Jumped backwards from the ground into the air a hundred meters up. I swear, from there I saw the thing disappear. Just poof... vanished into thin air. That was no human being, and a taxi driver is dead."

With many mutterings about his objections to the clearly the mentally ill setting foot into his place of business, the cafe owner walked quickly from the kitchen, grabbed the lady by the arms and less than politely showed her out. The unfortunately lady, her hair in a mess and her wind breaker well wrinkled, protested all the while that unbelievable as her story must seem, there really was a man dead and an alien loose in the city. Her shouts were silenced buy the shutting of the door. She began to hurry away, more than likely trying to find help elsewhere.

"Isn't this right up your alley, Doctor?" Hailey whispered over the table.

"You know" the Doctor said back quietly and with uncertainty. He was still bothered mildly by his thoughts from their earlier conversation. "We could skip this one. There's always a chance she really is just some crazy person making a scene."

"Oh come on," Hailey answered, still whispering, but also grinning brightly. "You'd never want to just miss this and you know it."

The Doctor did his best to shake off his self doubt in regards to Hailey and her safety. He had to note to himself that she certainly didn't look too frightened or too bothered by the dangers thus far. He asked himself why he was suddenly so concerned for her safety when he didn't give Rose's capability to take care of herself on adventures a second thought. He was holding his newest companion to a double standard. He had to admit that fact to himself and once he did admit it, he didn't like it at all. He looked for a brief second at the smiling young woman, her multi-colored hair falling over her eyes in a wild mess from the rain water drenching, and her face determined to help someone in trouble.

"No, you're right," he said. "Okay then, so off we go again?" He held out a hand to her.

"Off we go again," Hailey answered. The two of them set off running from the cafe and into the street, in a plan to catch that shouting woman.

**Okay, readers of this fanfic, I need a a few opinion here if anyone is willing to give one. Am I actually writing the 10th Doctor in proper character? I'm trying to, but as I'm noticing in the world of fanfiction writing, he's actually a harder character to write properly than I had first thought he'd be.**


	9. Chapter 9

The rain had almost stopped pouring down not long before, and had become only a light misty drizzle. Evening was falling and the lateness of the day combined with the clouds in the sky, covered the city in a depressing gloom. The streets were lit by the artificial glow of the streetlights, and the headlights from cars and busses that rushed past reflected off the wet roads. There was a lot of traffic out that evening but it seemed that as was typical of city drivers, it would have taken a lot to cause them to notice much outside of their own concerns. Two people running up the sidewalk through the rain certainly went unnoticed, even though those two people happened to be pointing up urgently toward the sky.

""Straight up in the air," Hailey exclaimed, slightly louder than she meant to speak. "Did you see that? It just went straight up, and vanished in the air!"

"It teleported," the Doctor answered, coming to a stop right behind his companion, who had stopped to stand on the sidewalk, still looking up. "It didn't just vanish from existence. I don't see how it could have done that. It must have gone somewhere else."

"Well, yeah!" Hailey replied in a combination of frustration and amusement at his assessment. "But the question is where did it go?"

"One issue at a time. I'm just trying to figure out what that creature is for now, and where it came from," the Doctor replied. He stood still on the sidewalk for a moment looking up at the place in midair, where the strange and impossible to forget alien creature had disappeared. He tapped one foot on the concrete absently while he tried to think. In his mind he could not quite put a planet name to a racial description, and it frustrated him.

"Doctor, come on," Hailey said, her voice projecting the urgency of the moment.

"Wait, wait, I'm thinking."

"But, Doctor..."

"I just need a minute to..."

"Come on!" Hailey, staring up at the unstable, crumbling balcony attached to the front of a building overhead, grabbed the Doctor by the front of his coat and yanked him forward.

The balcony broke free from it's supporting structure, and fell to the sidewalk below in a pile of metal and stone, as the Doctor and Hailey landed stunned on the sidewalk a safe distance away. Hailey kept her hold on the front of the Doctor's coat for a few moments as she sat catching her breath. It was only after a few seconds that seemed to drag on forever that she realized her frilly plaid skirt was out of place, and it was only her black leggings that protected her modesty. The Doctor lay facedown on the ground, in the position in which he had landed after throwing his hands out in front of his body to catch himself.

Slowly and with both of them shaky from the accident, the Doctor pulled himself to his feet, and helped Hailey to hers. Both rearranged their clothing back into some respectable order, and stood staring at each other in shock. Hailey only turned slowly and with a rapid heartbeat, to look back at the wreckage on the sidewalk only two meters away from where she stood. The Doctor, having recovered from the fright much quicker than she did, was already staring at the spot the balcony had fallen from in the first place, with a look of purposeful observance. The drivers of the cars and busses on the street began to slow down and here and there the occasional driver pulled out a phone to call for help. A car pulled over but the woman that was driving with a baby in a car seat in the back did not get out. She just sat watching. Presumably she wanted to be of any possible help she could, but did not want to leave the baby alone.

Hailey looked up slowly in the direction the Doctor was looking. She reached down to once again straighten her skirt, and she pulled the red raincoat down from where it sat awkwardly bunched around her backside. A crowd was starting to assemble around them. People comprehending the immediate aftermath of the accident, slowly shook off their shock and hesitation and began to hurry over to offer help. Presumably they assumed that one or both of them might have gotten hurt. Before anyone could get close enough to the two of them though the empty air above the place where the balcony had been moments before, turned to a pink hazy glow. The space in the air rippled and waved and shook strangely. The gathering crowd gasped and stood wide eyed. Within seconds all of them had turned and run in fright.

Standing still on the sidewalk simply waiting to see what might happen next, the Doctor grabbed Hailey by the sleeve of her raincoat. He pulled her toward him and put his arms around her in an attempt to protect her. Her body was pulled against his but Hailey managed to turn her head and look to see what was happening in the air. For several long seconds she just stood and watched and allowed herself to accept being protected. She gasped audibly though and pulled herself free when a creature suddenly and unexpectedly emerged from thin air in the middle of the pink glow. Blue skin contrasted against the dark sky and the glowing light, long arms and legs reached down toward the ground and a row of sharp and jagged teeth stood out against the red almost grinning mouth. It looked for a moment as though it might descend to the ground, but it stayed suspended in the air with it's pink light fading behind it. Even from the distance between it and the round below it was clear that the creature was big, certainly well over nine feet in hight. It pointed straight to ward the Doctor with a handful of six long clawed fingers.

The thing, without any warning at all flipped in the air and moved quickly toward him. Standing very close by, Hailey let out a shriek of surprise and concern.

"Doctor!" she exclaimed as she found herself pushed aside as carefully as possible. "Do something. Can't the thing be killed?"

The Doctor's eyes grew wide at her words, as he ducked out the way of the creature's path. "I'm not going to just kill it. We have to give him a chance to explain."

"But it's trying to kill you! Why you anyway? All these people in range it it notices you right away."

The alien creature crashed against the wall of a building behind them. It happened to be the side wall of a hardware store. It picked itself up of the ground and ran on the ground on two legs in the same way a person might move. It was easy to see though that it's legs were constructed in a slightly different way. The knees bent slightly backward and it stood on it's three long toes. It paused for a moment and looked around to get it's bearings, before it ran again, once more rushing right toward the Doctor in what could not be mistaken for anything but an aggressive stance.

"Hailey run back to the TARDIS," the Doctor whispered as he stood still just staring ahead as the thing ran toward him. "Get away from here. This one certainly seems to mean trouble."

"Run away and just leave you here to deal with it? No way. I'm staying and helping."

"Hailey. I mean it. Run."

The young woman only stared at him for a short moment with a mixture of panic and hurt and annoyance on her face.

"What do you mean you want to let it explain itself? And what if it doesn't acknowledge the invitation? It doesn't exactly seem very talkative."

"Go on. Get out of here."

"Oh you stubborn, senseless, careless, self destructive..." Hailey muttered as she powered walked away in the direction the Doctor absent-mindedly pointed. "If you think I'm just going to run off like some scared little..."

The alien creature landed on the sidewalk in front of the place where the Doctor stood. It stood up straight and stared down at him for a moment. He only looked back up at the thing, waiting for it to make a move or say anything. For a moment he wondered if the creature was capable of speaking. He'd seen one if it's kind before, that much he knew... but where and when? It could speak and understand. He recalled that detail now. The creature was one of a considerable degree of intelligence. Reasoning with and questioning it was, he was sure, not a useless idea. The blue, sharp toothed creature walk toward him with purposeful and even furious steps. The Doctor help a hand out in front of him and put on his best look of annoyed irritation.

"Now you wait just a minute," he said urgently. "You just come down here speeding into the city through some dimensional gate and we don't even know who you are you doing here? This planet is inhabited you know. Billions of people here and they don't need some space visitor knocking apart their buildings with your gate ways."

"Silence!" came the angry reply from the visiting alien. It had stopped moving again and once more the two stood looked at one another. "What concern or use to have have for this planet. It is no more your world than it is mine!"

"No no, you're right. It's not my planet. But it just so happens I like this one. It's kind of my personal favorite. I've got a lot of friends here, and I won't have you down here causing nothing but trouble."

"You are a long way from home, Time Lord!" the alien declared. It's voice, already higher in pitch than one might expect from one so large, rose in volume and tone.

"As are you," the Doctor answered. "Where is home for you exactly anyway? And you've obviously heard of my home then. Good."

"Your people destroyed mine! I've come seeking a chance to survive. I need to exist. So few of us remain." The big blue alien burst into motion once again and charged right for the Doctor. He dove out of the way and nearly succeeded in little more than tripping over his own feet and landing in the street. An automobile hubcap rolled down the sidewalk and past the un-noticing view of the furious creature. It rolled under it's feet as it ran, and sent it flying over forwards. It landed on it's stomach and hands with a thump. The only sound to be heard for a few long seconds was the sound of shuffling feet and the tapping of metal against plastic. The Doctor raised his gaze, just as the creature pulled itself to it's feet in a huff. Hailey jumped from the top of a van packed along the curb. The second metal hubcap she held in her hand made contact with the back of the alien's head.

"Hailey, what are you doing here?" The Doctor asked with a clear combination of relief at acquiring help, and annoyance at having been disobeyed. "I told you to run away."

"Trying to save your stubborn butt," the young lady in the colorful outfit answered. She grinned her silly, excitable grin. "So you still want to try to talk with it, or should we send it packing now?"

"We try to learn it's side of the story," the Doctor said. "we try to get us and all those other people in the streets out of danger without hurting it and we will do it as much 'by the book' as we can."

"Okay, okay," Hailey dropped the hubcap to the ground and gave up all thoughts of hitting the thing again.

"What do you want with the planet Earth?" the Doctor addressed the alien with confidence. "Of course you are looking for safety, but what else? There must be more."

The creature stood still towering over both him and Halley with it's large eyes studying them intently. Slowly, gaining a slight degree of trust in them, it began to speak in more civil and calm tones. "There was a war, a great and horrible war over all of time itself. It raged through a vast space within the universe, and snuffed the life out of hundreds of worlds. Mine was along those lost. A hopelessly small number of us escaped and we scattered ourselves over inhabited worlds throughout the stars. My world is gone now, burned to ashes and wreckage and I must survive in any way I can. All of us must! Billions died and no one came to save us. No one even let us try to save ourselves. We could only run like terrified children as our planet was reduced to ruin."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said forcing back his own sudden outset of threatening tears. "I tried to save as many worlds as I could. I... I couldn't save them all... I'm very sorry it happened like this."

"You play the victim Time Lord, but I can see right through your act. You play the innocent hero trying to save anyone you can, but you are responsible for it all in the first place."

"No, that isn't true. It got out of hand. The war went way to far. I ended that war but I never hurt anyone else."

"You let my people and my planet die. You made that happen." the Creature ran at him again, but this time the Doctor only stood still not even thinking enough to get out of the way. He was shocked and shaking by the turn in the conversation. He could barely think of a thing aside from grief and hurt. In a fury driven by a survival function that was still not understood, it raised a clawed hand and prepared to bring it down against the Doctor's neck.

"Don't hurt him," Hailey cried. "Your words have already hurt him to the point he can't even fight back right now. Please, just tell me what you're thinking. Why are you doing this. I understand that you are angry. I see that you want revenge for your home, but how could killing the last of the Time Lords right anything that was done wrong?"

The angry blue alien turned to look at her. It stood still, rocked slowly back and forth on the heels of it's feet. It appeared to be thinking intently. She took that to be a promising sign.

"Last of the Time Lords?" the alien questioned, with a sudden tone of sarcastic disbelief. "The last perhaps he is, except of course for you!"

"Oh no, no way. I'm not a Time Lord. I'm human. It seems I might have a bit of a family history, is all. But tell me please, did you really kill a man in a car?"

"If that human male is dead, it was not what I meant to happen. My intent was not to kill him, but only to feed on his life-force energy. The human body is weak. They have a habit of dying where many others would not die, but simply sleep for a time."

"So that's why you are here then? That's why you needed to find a planet that was inhabited? You live on the life force of other living things."

"Yes," the creature explained, with a calmness that Hailey found a relief. We were meant to live on the energy generated by the trees and plant life our out home world. They gave off a life force not seen in plants virtually anywhere else. We have evolved since the time war. We had to evolve. We had to live on the force of intelligent creatures. We have to survive. We have to exist!"

Hailey's eyes slowly left the creature and turned back to look at the Doctor. He stood near here, several meters away, listening to the two of them talk back and forth. For all appearances he was barely succeeding in shaking off his shock at the statement of the creature. Slowly his eyes met hers and she saw the full extent of his grief looking back at her.

"Snap out of it, Doctor," she muttered under her breath. "There will be time to think of home later, but now is not the time and place."

A task. She knew she had to find a task for him to focus on doing. Something to distract him from thoughts of his lost home. There would of course be time for that later, but she knew that if she could only help him there might be a hope of dealing with this invading being before another human was killed.

"The Doctor can help you," she told the creature, loud enough that her companion would clearly hear her words. "Let's ask him for help. You don;t have to kill him, or anyone else. We can't fix this. We can't fix much of anything, but he can help."

"The TARDIS needs another day to refuel," the Doctor said, slowly grounding himself back in the present moment. "When it's done though and we can take off again, I promise I will find a more suitable planet to move you to. You and all the others of your race that found their way to Earth."

The blue alien creature considered for a few long moments and then to their great relief, it gave it's agreement.

~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~

"I can't believe Rose missed this whole thing," Hailey said as she and the Doctor as the two of them re-entered the TARDIS. The Doctor closed the doors behind them. Both sat down on the chairs near the console.

"She should be back any time now," the Doctor said checking the time on a watch he wore on his wrist. "We have to tell her all about our encounter. She'll certainly want to hear all about that alien. Besides, she'll have to get ready to travel again very soon. I promised to find a suitable and planet and I think I have one in mind. Off we go as soon as Rose is back and the ship is refueled. Okay, just for fun, quiz time. What was that and where did it come from?"

Hailey sat thinking for a moment or two. She thought back to her textbook studies of the past couple of days and realized that as luck would have it, she'd seen a picture of a similar thing in one of the books just two days before. She gave a triumphant grin.

"It's from a place called Vanesha - One. It's a member of the native species known as the Grimmins. I can't recall reading a thing about a Grimmin surviving on the life force of trees though. That's something I would be interested in reading more about if it comes up in books later on." Hailey's face fell when she saw that the Doctor was shaking his head, in a negative response.

"A Grimmin is a darker blue," he said. "And not as tall either. They eat in a more typical manner as well. The thing we ran into is known as a Vaneshan from Vanesha - Three."

"Shoot! Sorry. I was so sure I had it right."

"That's okay, don't be sorry. That's why you study. To learn. If you knew everything you wouldn't need to learn, right. Anyway that's a hard one. I don't think it's in the books. I didn't know what it was right away either until I remembered encountering a few during the time war." The Doctor stopped speaking suddenly and looked down saying nothing again. He recovered quickly though, looked back up at Hailey and said, "I wanted to see if you could find the information in your mind again. That's a skill you need to work with more and more. It'll become your main source of knowledge, instead of those books."

"Okay. I'll practice that next time."

"Oh you'll have plenty of chances. I'll make sure I keep bugging you with questions to answer."

"I still can't believe I can do something like that in the first place," Hailey said, with a slight laugh. She looked the Doctor in the eyes though and let her voice turn to complete seriousness. "Honestly though, are you alright? Earlier you seemed so... I'm not even sure what you were. Sad and in shock, perhaps."

"I'm fine, or at least I will be soon enough. To be completely honest that creature knew exactly the worst thing to say to me in a battle of mental wills. It should be said though that as much as I would not even want to admit it, I'm glad you stuck around to help. You do seem to have some good skills with alien diplomacy."

"Hello," Rose called as she waked onto the time-ship at that moment. She squirmed out of her backpack and left it sitting on the floor against a wall of the room. She took her jacket off and hung it on the coat rack,a nd stood looking at her friends.

"It rained cats and dogs the other night in London," she said. "Hopefully you didn't get soaked over here as well. Anyway, what a day and night I had. The train to London was late getting in and then I missed the bus. The whole estate had an electricity blackout and there was a bad fight in the neighbors flat last night and we had to call the police about it. So, what about over here? I didn't miss any excitement did I?"

"Not too much no," the Doctor said with a look of both confidence and humor. "Just more of the typical same old same old."

Rose perched on the edge of a seat. "Your kind of typical or the rest of the planet's kind of typical?"

"Oh, my kind of course," the Doctor grinned.

"Hmm... so let me guess, you guys just had to run into trouble again!"

"Just waiting to finish charging in a few more hours," Hailey put in. "We have a big blue alien to transport somewhere more appropriate than Earth, before it makes more of a mess."

Rose laughed. "Yeah, just another normal day in the lives of crazy folks like us."

~DW~DW~DW~

In the dimness of only one light turned onto a low setting, Hailey sat on the floor of her bedroom. Through the near darkness she stared into the mirror on the back side of the open closet door. She'd tried twice before that evening and nothing happened, but it was great determination that she assured herself the third attempt would be the one that succeeded. She mentally set her focus onto the simplest of the universe maps she;d studied and thought of projecting that mental image outward.

She was sitting in such a way that she was out of range of the mirror's reflection, and all she could see in it was darkness. Simple darkness was not what she was aiming for however. She set her intention on the focused thought in her mind, with still more energy, and finally and much to her great surprise, the map began to show itself as a reflected image on the surface on the mirror. She kept her mind focused on the map, so as not to lose it, and looked intently at a certain place near the middle of it. Using the faint outlines of the constelations, she tried to trace her path back to where she knew a reflection of Earth could appear if she were to find the place to locate it correctly. She mentally traced the path through the stars. She had the right place in a few brief seconds of though and decided in a split second to add the rest of the solar system to her mental map, along with the Earth.

"I wanted to let you know I found a place for our blue friend." The Doctor's voice gave her a terrible startle and with a loud gasp of fright she nearly fell backwards on her floor.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said. "I knocked and got no answer. I didn't know you were busy in here."

"I never even heard anyone knocking," Hailey said, still struggling to catch her breath. She moved to get up, but he told her not to worry about it. He sat on the floor nearby.

"I remember practicing that one, way back in my academy days," he said. "I was never great at it. never could hold an image well enough to keep it projected for much time at all. I could just barely do it well enough to get a passing grade on that one."

He looked to Hailey's now blank mirror. "How's it working out for you? Have you been able to get anywhere with it yet?"

Hailey explained that she had been able to copy the map and was simply trying to decide where the Earth was meant to go. The Doctor's eyes opened wider in surprise.

"And you just started to practice in the last few days?" he asked her.

"Just tonight, yeah. I came to the unit on the power of the mind as a navigation device, and this was the given assignment so I thought I best work on it," Hailey answered. Her face turned up in a proud grin as she changed the topic slightly. "Oh, speaking of assignments, I finished that essay on the theory of non-interference. I saved it to the TARDIS's main computer hard drive, but I have a paper copy for you as well."

"Why'd you write on essay on that sort of topic? It sounds quite boring."

"The assignment guide in the front of the red textbook listed that as the next assignment for that subject."

"Hmm... okay sorry. I forgot all about that one. What was the exact assignment?"

"Based on the knowledge learned from the books up to now, and using your own personal opinions on the matter, write at least ten thousand words in essay format, on the Time Lord laws of non-interference, in the lives of other races and in universal events."

"Wow, alright. So how many words did you manage to write?"

"I think it's about eleven thousand, four hundred words," Hailey said.

"You know, Hailey," the Doctor said in a combination of seriousness and hints of laughter. "I never meant for you to actually do all of the assignments. The practical ones of course, by all means have to be done and practiced until you get good at them. But things like essays, well there's not much point. There's no one to grade them."

Hailey looked up at him, baffled. "I thought you did that."

"Sure, yeah okay. you're right," the Doctor said, not looking at her. "I'm planning to read that new essay tonight after we finish relocating the Vaneshan." He never planned to tell her that he never read any of the last thirteen of her essays and reports that she'd submitted to the computer, not knowing it was unneeded."

"Hey Doctor..."

"Yes?"

"When do I get to know my grade on this whole term?"

The Doctor only told her quickly to keep practicing with the mirror and that he would let her know when they reached their destination. He hurried out of her room.


	10. Chapter 10

Rose wandered through the halls of the TARDIS, making her way down into the lower levels. She had never been down so far before, but had never been told one way or the other whether it was a good idea to be down there or not. Whatever the case, she saw no reason not to wander down there. She came to a set of large double doors at the end of a corridor and knew from the Doctor's description of the place, that that was what she was looking for. Taking great care, not exactly sure what she would find behind the doors, she pulled open the one on the left hand side. She hurried into the room and pushed the door shut behind her, making sure she made a mental note of the four number lock code she'd seen on the front side.

A large blue creature that almost seemed to glow, sat near the far end of the room, with it's two legs folded neatly under it's body and it's arms resting in it's lap. It's eyes were shut, but they opened as soon as it heard the sound of the door. Rose took hesitant steps toward it and stopped several meters away, in the middle of the room. She held out her hands to show she held no weapons or objects of harm. The blue alien only looked at her, with an expression in it's eyes that she could not read.

"Hello," she said. "My name's Rose. I just wanted to find out if you needed anything. I could get you some water if you like, or food. Actually I have no idea why the others don't seem to have done that already."

"I don't consume food and water," the alien said. It remained where it was sitting and maintained a non-threatening pose.

"Really?" Rose remarked, in surprise. "I thought everyone had to eat and drink."

"You still have difficulty then imagining possibilities of things that would seem so foreign to a member of humanity. You've not traveled the universe much?" The last sentence it spoke was clearly a a question. It was curious about her and giving her an opening in which to converse with it.

"Not that much I suppose," Rose said. She sat down slowly in the middle of the floor. "I met the Doctor last year and he's taken me with him to so many places since then. I suppose though given the size of it all, I'll never seen more than a tiny piece of the universe."

"My people never traveled much," the alien said. "We went only as far as we needed to, from time to time. We we happy at home and never went far from our source of nourishment. I cannot comprehend a desire to see all that may be out there, just for the want of adventure. And you, a simple human, of a race that's barely yet gotten it's feet off the surface of your planet, traveling through the cosmos in the company of Time Lords! I find that notion both fascinating and terrifying."

Rose laughed out loud at the final statement. "Yeah, it's so often both. It's always so amazing though. You have one little detail wrong though, but it's nothing too huge."

"What detail might that be?"

"Well I never really started out traveling with more than one Time Lord. It was only the Doctor and me together at first. We picked up Hailey way later. She's only been with us now for a few months." She paused and thought for a instant, trying once again to get her mind around a relation between liner earth time, and time onboard the TARDIS. "It seems like so much longer than that now. Oh, you have actually met Hailey right? Or am I just confusing you."

"Young Hailey is the one to give credit for offering me assistance. While your friend the Doctor only stumbled over his own words and thoughts, and thought only of making up for a past he could never repair, the young one saw me as just another creature in trouble. In all perfect honesty young human, Rose... I am unclear on the status and situation of the young Time Lord. I see her as impossibly young. From what I know of her race, she should still be a very small child. Yet she is clearly a young adult and is already far from her home. How did she even manage to survive the war?"

"I don't know much at all about the time war, but Hailey didn't actually escape it. She was born on Earth. She is a student Time Lord now, but is part human and raised like any other human child until the Doctor offered to train her."

"That," the blue alien conceded, "would go a long way to explaining my confused notions of her."

"It doesn't seem like you are a terrible fellow at all."

"I'm not."

"No," Rose said. "Just someone wanting to survive against difficult odds. The Doctor found a nice place to send you though. No more dealing with the population of an inhabited planet. The right kind of food source. He says it's very very green there. We just need to find more of your people and try to bring them there too."

"I can show you where many of them are now," the alien said. "I can point out the world on a star map."

"Well don't tell me," Rose answered, laughing a little. "You should tell the Doctor all that information... or I suppose even Hailey might be of some help. I think I'd just get confused though, trying to pass the information on."

"Rose," the creature said, as the young woman stood to leave the room. She stopped and turned back to look it in the eyes. "I feel I must thank you."

"Well you are quite welcome," Rose said. She left the room and stepped out into the hall in a good mood with a smile on her face.

"Doctor," she cried urgently. She hurried into the console room, where she found him sitting with his feet resting on the controls, with a small stack of papers on his lap. "If we can bring a star map to the alien downstairs, he can show us where to go to find and offer assistance to more of his people."

The Doctor looked up from his little pile of papers, which on closer glance looked to be computer typed pages. "Yeah. Sure, of course. "I'll have Hailey go and figure that out. She will be able to read the maps and tell me where we need to go, so that I can program the coordinates." He took off his glasses and looked back at the papers then looked absently around the room.

"I didn't realize you were busy," Rose said. "I'll leave you to it."

"No, no. It's fine. Talking to you is a good excuse to not have to do all this reading right away."

"Oh no. What are you trying to read anyway?"

"Hailey's essay," the Doctor explained. "Her textbooks still have all of the study and assignment guidelines in them, and I suppose I forgot to tell her not to actually bother to write the essays. So of course she did and she handed this one in. I found several others saved onto the computer too."

"Oh my gosh. That's a lot of pages though. How many words did she write?"

"Eleven thousand or so."

"Wow. That's amazing."

"Not so amazing, I think." the Doctor said with a sigh. "I have to grade all of them. I have to admit, I never really thought about that when I gave her those old books. I suppose though, hindsight being what it is, that if she is going to work through those books, someone actually should grade her work."

"I think I have a distraction for you, from your grading work," Rose said. "A suggestion for Hailey. I don't mean to be nosy, and stick my nose into her life, but I think there's something she needs, that she doesn't even know she needs yet. Does that actually even make any sense?"

"Yeah, it does."

The two of them took a few moments in the console room alone for a serious and short discussion.

~DW~DW~DW~DW~

"Well he certainly seemed to like the place you found for him, Doctor," Hailey said, as the TARDIS dematerialized from the surface on a world known only as Z-14-G on any star map ever made.

"Now this is where your part comes into play," the Doctor replied. "Have you worked out those coordinates?"

Hailey nodded and pulled a slip of paper from the pocket of her blue jeans. She rapidly read off a string of numbers as the Doctor pressed buttons on the console computer.

The Doctor looked up from his button pushing nearly as fast as he'd begun, and gave quick and excited directions. "Rose, green switch on your left, pull that down and hold it. Hailey, red button in front of you, and blue one up top. Let go of blue quickly, but keep your hand on red."

"And off we go then!" he exclaimed, as his two young companions hurried to carry out and perfectly time their tasks. Rose pulled her designated switch down as far as she could and stood talking care to not loose her grip on it. Hailey, a considerably small individual as far as hight was concerned, put one hand onto a button in front of her, and literally jumped slightly to reach and firmly hit the one just slightly out of reach.

With it's familiar wheezing groan, the TARDIS materialized after a short trip through the time vortex. The Doctor stepped out first, followed by Rose right after. They had landed near a well kept bed of brightly colored wild flowers, at the edge of a landscaped courtyard. Separated from them by a maze of walking paths, a couple of benches, and a few evergreens, was a large building of red brick, with many small windows along all of it's four floors. Rose looked at the Doctor with a look of understanding of what he had done, but he only turned back to the TARDIS doors, and never noticed. Hailey walked of the ship with her backpack, which she'd been searching for when they landed.

"Guys, wait up a minute," she cried, throwing the backpack on. She stopped in her tracks and looked around, exchanging puzzled glances with Rose. "Hey, Doctor, where are we. That big blue alien guy said we'd find ourselves in a desert type of place near some kind of refugee settlement. I think we made a mistake in our landing."

"Well..." the Doctor began, but he stopped speaking after that, without saying anything more.

"I wonder how far off we are," Hailey mused out loud, still trying to use the logical thinking ashe had been learning so well. "Judging from that building over there, I'd say we are still in modern times. Nineteenth or twentieth century Earth."

She took another look around and her eyes narrowed with bewilderment.

"Wait. This looks a bit familiar. I've been here before."

"You recognize it now?" the Doctor asked, as Hailey walked up beside him and then kept walking a few more steps forward. She wandered over to a large wooden sign, embedded into the flower bed, announcing a name of a place she'd seen before.

"J.C. Belmont Psychiatric Hospital," she said, reading the sign out loud. She looked back and the Doctor and Rose. "This is the institution my mum's been in most of my life. The times I've been here, I've always come to the front but now I do recognize the place anyway. What a place to accidently end up at."

"It wasn't by accident," the Doctor said, admitting that fact for the first time. I meant to bring us here. This is where I set the ship to land."

"But... why?" Hailey questioned quietly. She stared ahead at the brick building with dread plainly showing across her face.

"Well I've come to realized just from seeing how Rose is with her Mum, just how important one can be in the lives of young ladies. I see how happy she is every time she finds an opportunity to go and visit hers. I thought you might like to visit yours for a while too."

"I'm not like Rose," Hailey said. She looked at the other young woman, and smiled. "No offense of course. Not a bad thing. I'm just saying, we are different. Circumstances are different."

"He's right though," Rose said. "Of course it's different with you and your life, but at least say pop in and say hello to her. You might be surprised what happens. She might like a surprise visit from her daughter."

"I'll do it another time" Hailey said. "I mean, is now really even a good time for social visiting? What about those aliens that might need a bit of help from us?"

"I have a time machine," the Doctor replied to her excuses. "Time is of no importance and you would know that as well as I do."

"Well since time is of no significance, then we can do the visit later, because it can be today anytime," Hailey said. She was making another excuse, finding one more reason not to go and visit.

In the end though she stopped, realized that they were both right and that if she didn't go, she'd never know what could have been. She stood for a moment, staring at the back door of the large building.

"Okay," she said. "Not sure when visiting hours are, but if we came during the right time, I'll say hello to her."

"We'll wait around," Rose said, and the Doctor nodded his agreement.

Hailey walked into the hospital and found herself standing in a large open reception area painted a lovely cheerful shade of yellow. There were a few comfortable padded chairs against the far wall, and a rack well stocked leaflets on various mental health issues, and magazines on general interest topics. The room, as well as what she could see of the hallway beyond contained hanging plants her and there, in decorative baskets suspended from the ceiling, and framed pictures, mostly of animals and landscapes. They had decorated in there since she'd last been in years before. It looked nice. More like what someone would like to call a home.

"How can I help you, miss?" a female voice said from behind the front desk, which was placed behind a partly partitioned off wall, and behind a plastic safety door.

"Hello," Hailey said. "Um... I'm looking for a patient here called Abigail Andrews. At least I would assume she's still a patient in here."

"I'll just take a look in the computer for you," the lady in the booth said pleasantly. "Just give me a second." She typed something into a computer, and Hailey found herself half hoping she'd find her and half hoping she wouldn't. The front desk clerk kept on looking.

"So who might you be," she asked without looking up from her monitor. "Are you a relative of hers?"

"Yes," Hailey answered, suddenly overwhelmed with an urge to shout at the Doctor and Rose for making her do this in the first place. "I'm her daughter."

"Oh, how nice. Your mother must be looking forward to seeing you."

"I really don't know. We don't actually know each other very well."

"Hmm... yes I see. She is in here, and she's listed as a very long term patient. She's been here for around sixteen or seventeen years. Must have been here most of your life."

"Yeah. Pretty much." Hailey had to wonder for a moment why she was actually conversing with this woman she'd just met, like they could have been old friends. Still though she found herself giving a little more unneeded information. "I last saw her about five or six years ago. Because she didn't really have any parental rights, it was more or less a matter of being brought to see her when and if the home I lived in decided to bother. Today a couple of friends of mine convinced me to come and say hello to her while we were... um... in the area."  
"Well Mother's day is certainly a wonderful time to visit your mum," the lady said. Hailey forcefully stopped herself from gasping out loud in surprise and even annoyance. She hadn't known it was mother's day. She didn't keep good track of that day at the best of times, and now traveling through time made dates next to impossible to track on top of that fact. The Doctor, she realized then, probably wouldn't have been well aware of the date either. He would have no real reason to know, and he wasn't even human. Rose must have told him, she understood then. She must have worked the dates out and asked him to land on that particular day. She suppressed her momentary annoyance at her friend for that little game.

Hailey walked off an elevator a short time later, and onto the fourth floor. She was looking for a room number that she'd been given at the front desk, and still not sure how she had possibly been talked into her newest situation at all. Room 417 was at the end of a hallway, near a large sitting room lined on one side with windows and filled with shelves of books and board games. Room 417, that was the right room. Hailey, who could recall enough information that it would overwhelm most other people, had been confidant enough not to write down a three numbers. She was still confidant about the numbers. What she was still not confidant about though, was the idea of a talk with her mother. She wondered as she tapped lightly on the door whether she was even in there, and admitted she would feel relieved if she was not.

The door was unlocked, she found when she tried the knob. This, she understood, was not a high level security lock down ward. She wandered inside the room and found it was not at all like the room her mother had lived in the last time she'd seen her. Unlike the last, very white and plain room she had seen, this one was painted light blue and contained basic wooden furniture. There was a little night stand next to the bed, a small dresser, low shelf containing a few books and ornaments, and couple framed pictures, throughout the small room. Neatly folded over the end of the bed was a pink plaid quilt.

"Abigail Andrews?" Hailey said quietly, to a woman that sat in a beige armchair by the small window reading a romance novel. Slowly the woman turned around and stood up.

"Hailey!" she cried, in surprise and excitement. "I wasn't expecting you to ever visit again. Come in of course."

Hailey stepped into the room and sat down rigidly on the bed. Her mother looked older than the last time she'd seen her. of course that was not a surprise at all. It had been at least five years since she'd seen her last. She had to admit that she looked better though. Her blue institutional housecoat, had been replaced by a pair of blue jeans and a comfortable pink blouse. She grown her hair long as well. The last time she'd seen her, it had been short.

"There's a little kitchen down the hall for us and out visitors to use,"Abigail rambled, clearly nervous herself. "I could make us tea, or perhaps you'd prefer to have coffee."

"I'm fine thanks," Hailey said. Her mother finally sat down in a chair and just looked at her.

"Your hair is nice these days,' she said. "Very bright, that's for sure."

"Thanks."

"So someone from the agency finally decided to bring you down to visit, huh? Tell them I'm grateful that they did. Or wait...are you even still...? How old are you now. I lost track so fast, sad as that sounds. Seventeen, eighteen? Surely you're older than I like to think."

"Nineteen now, Mum. Just about twenty, now."

"Oh god. My baby grew up and I never knew it! Last night I thought of your birthday coming up, but I wondered if you were turning eighteen or nineteen. It's weird though. In my head, when I picture you, you are still so little."

"Yeah, I grew up," Hailey said. The urge to be nasty surfaced and she let it show. "I suppose never being wanted by most of the people that used and beat on me made me grow up so fast too. Not to say that all youth in care are in such bad homes. I guess I just got unlucky nine times out of ten."

"I'm sorry all this happened. I'll always be sorry for all that." Her pain that showed in her mother's eyes, made her regret her nastiness.

"I'm sorry," she muttered. "I just get mad sometimes. And I did have a few good homes too. I guess at times I just feel..." She felt tears ready to fall and she swallowed them back with a stubbornness that had been with her for so long. "Never mind. Anyways, happy Mother's day. I don't have a gift for you though. I didn't even have the chance to find you a card."

"I get a visit from my daughter though," Abigail said. "That's better than any store bought gift. Want to take a walk with me? I have pretty good freedom of movement around here now. I pend a lot of time outside on the grounds. I can even go into the village, as long as I sign out and return within a few hours."

"Is everything okay?" Her mother asked Hailey as they walked around on the grounds of the hospital. "Did you really just suddenly come to see me on mother's day."

"Everything's fine," Hailey answered. She looked for a bench the two of them could sit on to chat. "I just happened to be about so I stopped in."

"So, what have you been doing those days?"

"Oh my, well that's a long story and a half. I thought I'd met the man I'd spend my life with a couple of years ago. We broke up though, or rather I left him and moved to a new apartment. That's one guy I'll never take back in a million years. Oh and I've been working as a waitress. I've sold a couple paintings and been offered a small exhibit in London. Anyway, now I'm sort of... traveling."

"You're close to being a professional artist then!" Abigail cried happily. "At at only nineteen. That's amazing."

"Hardly a professional. Just a wanna-be artist working full time at minimum wage while I dream of fame. It's all just for the love of painting though. Anyway I sold a couple from a community art fair, last year."

"Still, very nice though. So, traveling now, then? Where have you been traveling? How long are you around for?"

"This is hard to believe I know, but I've been going all over the place with a friend I met a while back known only as the Doctor. He already had another traveling companion with him. She's still around. She's fun too. Someone to trade music with and talk about girlish stuff. These people are amazing though. They are pretty much my best friends now. We've seen so much though. There is so much that I would never have dreamed possible."

"You've been traveling all over Europe with someone, and you don't even know his actually name?"

Hailey found herself laughing hard at that. "She bent forward in giggles. "You sounded so mother-ish then." She found herself smiling and had to admit she was actually having a decent time. Of course she'd left out so many details from her information on her life. She;d not bothered to tell her mother than she'd left Jeff because he thought nothing of abusing her. She didn't say a thing about the fact that the Doctor and rose had rescued her from trouble after that same former boyfriend had left her for dead. Though she had thought about it, she also had not corrected her mother's assumption that she was traveling about in Europe. Suddenly, she wanted to tell her everything about the idea of time travel, and of all the things that existed in the universe. She wanted to tell her she'd discovered who her father was and thus what she was. But she kept silent.

"Well I am a mother after all," Abigail said, in reply to the last comment she had made. "You're mother. I worry and think of, and care a lot about you. I wasn't around when I should have been able to be, and for that I will always have so many regrets. But you're an adult now. You're free to do as you please and live as you wish. You can have whatever relationship with me now that you choose and I hope you will choose to have a lot of one."

"I'll visit far more often now," Hailey said honestly. "I'll see if I can stop by next time we pass through this area."

Abigail smiled, and stood to hug her daughter.

~DW~DW~DW~DW~

Hailey and the Doctor had fallen well into the habit of sitting up together for at least part of the time that Rose had to sleep. It was on very rare occasions that the Doctor needed to sleep, and Hailey slept typically only a couple of hours most every night. She would wake up in what they tended to call the middle of the night, and she and the Doctor would make repairs to the time ship's controls or study Gallifrain history and science. Sometimes they just messed about with simple day to day tasks and chatted with one another.

It was on one such night that Hailey walked into the console room, at what, in London's time zone, would have been two-thirty in the morning, dressed and ready to start a new day. Her hair was wet from showering, and she munched a piece of buttered toast.

"Morning," she said to the Doctor, whose feet she could clearly see poking out from under the console again.

"Morning," came a muffled reply, partly drowned out by the steady hum of some device being operated underneath. "Since you're up, can you have a look around in here for my screwdriver? I seem to have dropped it and it rolled away somewhere."

Hailey got down onto her hands and knees and slowly looked over the grating of the floor. Finding and retrieving the screwdriver, she handed it back and then stood up. A few short moments later the Doctor climbed out from under the console and proclaimed his repairs to be a job well done.

"Sleep well?" the Doctor asked. He sat down near the console and rested his feet on top of the controls.

"No," Haley climbed up to sit on the open part of one of the main support pilers, and turned to lean against it's curvature, with her feet tucked up in front of her. "Not really, to be honest. I just had such intense dreams I woke up more tired than when I went to sleep! Who'd have thought sleep would wear a person out."

"The bad dreams about your childhood again?" the Doctor asked. He fell silent for a fraction of a second before he said quickly, "Rose told me a while ago. I hope that's alright."

"It's fine. And no, it's not those dreams at all. It was a dream involving just a lot of numbers and names of planets we've never even been too and I've never heard of. Star charts and time lines and, things I can't even begin to understand. I know that I gained an understanding of how exactly the TARDIS can be bigger inside than outside, and something about how time loops can create themselves. When I woke up though it was all just a mostly forgotten blur."

"This isn't the first time either that I've had such dreams," she admitted. She fidgeted with the zipper of the black hooded sweater with the red and blue sleeves that she was wearing.

"How long have you been having these dreams?" the Doctor asked. "And how often do you have them?"

"It started about a month ago. Just one random dream like that at first. I could hardly remember it when I woke up and I thought nothing of it. about a week later though I had it again. Then a few days later. Now it happens all the time. I've had these kind of dreams every night for the last week."

"You should have told me sooner."

"But they're just dreams. I didn't think much about it, other than that it's mentally getting exhausting."

"Might not be anything. But it might just be something."

Hailey laughed and brushed off his enthusiasm. "I'm thinking not anything to significant or important. The fact that I'm starting to hear voices in my dreams now is evidence of that. It's just dream silliness."

But instead of dropping the issue and seeing it as little more than the silliness of the dreaming mind, the Doctor stood up from his seat slowly without taking his eyes off her.

"How long have you been hearing the voices in those dreams?" he asked, his eyes still fixed upon her.

"I don't know, maybe a week or so," Hailey shrugged. "Doctor, stop looking at me like that. You're kinda freaking me out." As soon as she got down from the top she'd been perched in, the Doctor took her by the arm gently and sat her down in the chair he'd just vacated.

"If I'm right, then this is something big and important," he said. The excitement in his voice told her it was actually a good thing he was speaking of. That was all that stopped her from becoming frightened. "I want to try to form a mental link with you again. I think I can gain an understand of this and then help you understand."

Hailey only nodded silently and permitted his actions as he placed his hands onto her head. She sat with her eyes shut and her hands on her knees, concentrating on as much of the dream imagery and voices as she could bring forward and tried to send him the information. She remembered the idea from her books, of shutting mental doors to avoid the sharing of things meant to never be shared, and shut the door she had formed a picture of in her mind. She went right back to thinking of the dreams and kept on sending. The doctor's voice, speaking out loud brought her back to the present time and reality.

"Sorry," she mumbled. "What were you saying?"

"Just that you are easy to work with mentally," answered the Doctor. "I was right though. I think those dreams are very important. And they're not exactly dreams."

"Really? What's going on? And whose voices can I hear?"

"No one person really. This sort of thing happens to most young time Lords, normally as children. You are behind in that way, probably because there were no triggers at all for your cellular memory until you met up with us. Now though, traveling in time and working with me has set the process off. Rightly so that it should be set off, too. It's a right you were born to receive. The Time Lords maintained the order of history and events in the universe for millions of years. Our minds are so tuned into it events and time lines and possibilities. Everything that ever could have been rushes through our heads all the time. Those dreams you've been having., that aren't really dreams at all, are the universe and the time vortex it self reaching out to you, trying to form a mental connection. You are being prepared for your rightful place in Time Lord society. The voices only mean the call is even stronger now."

"And this is a good thing?" Hailey asked slowly, filled with uncertainty.

"Yeah. It's a good thing. Have you read the chapters on initiation and pre-initiation yet?"

"Well sure. Those were among the first chapters of a few books. But Doctor I don't..."

"I wanted to tell you this. I was waiting for the right time and I guess this is it now. This would normally be the time you would go through you own initiation. of course things are different now. Our home is gone. I've gone back the oldest recorded history though and I learned that far back, so far back in fact that many would argue the validity of the old way, there was another way of awakening Time Lords."

"Doctor," Hailey stammered, certain that the situation had gone further than she'd even imagined it would. "Are you saying you want me to go through the initiation ritual?"

"I'm only asking you to think about doing it. Think very hard and well about this. For at least thousands of years Gallifrain children never got much of a choice, and they were just children. I would never ask you to do anything like that that you didn't want to do. All I ask now is that you reread every thing so far from your books on the topic and then read book I'll find in the library for you today dealing only with that, more in depth."

"Alright," Hailey answered simply. Of course there was certainly no harm in studying another book.

"Take as long as you want to with a decision on this," the Doctor told her. "It a huge event in your life. Everything will be different. And you will be the first in a long time that's ever had a choice.

**A/N; I managed to write a longer chapter this time which I'm happy about. For now I'll leave it at another (sort of) cliff hanger. I have a pretty good idea of where most of this story is going now, but it's still partly uncertain. So, for the sake of interest and ideas, what do you, the readers, want Hailey to decide to do? Anyways, as always reviews inspire faster updates and more writing. :) please R and R if you are so inclined. **


	11. Chapter 11

The Doctor clearly caught the sound of muffled sobbing cries as he left the console room and wandered toward the library. He stopped in the middle of the hallway he was walking through and listened. His ship was very large and try as he might, he could not actually be sure which rooms, if any, might be occupied. His thoughts wandered to Rose. The idea that she might be in her room, crying for some reason or another, crossed his mind and raised concern. He knew that she could be an emotional person when anything came up to cause such emotions. he took a step closer to the source of the sound. It was then that he realized first that Rose's room was actually in a different hallway, leading out from the other side of the console room, and below the wardrobe room; and secondly that Rose was last he'd seen her not long before, baking brownies in the kitchen.

After another quick moment's thought, he recalled that he was standing almost outside of the door of Hailey's room. He hesitated for a second before doing anything, questioning whether it would be right to enter a companion's room uninvited. Finally he knocked loudly on the door, and listened for any sound from within. All he could hear was the same muffled sound of a woman crying.

"Hailey?" he called loud enough to be heard on the other side of the door. No answer came back.

"You okay?" he tried next, this time a little louder. "Can I come in there?"

When he still heard no answer he opened the door and somewhat uncertainly stepped into the room. He found Hailey in her room sitting at the writing desk . The book she'd presumably been studying from muffled her desperate crying.

For a long moment she just sat where she was, with her face buried in the hard cover textbook she'd rested her head on and her hands under her head. She didn't even hear him enter the room. She must have finally felt his presence, because her head shot up fast and with her back to him, she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her black and red stripped sweater. She turned around in the chair to face him, and stared at him in surprise with tear stains on her face. She looked down and distractedly closed her book, before looking back up at him again.

"I thought I better ask if you're alright," the Doctor said, walking further into the room. "Clearly though something is not. What's the matter?"

"Nothing at all," Hailey answered, wiping her eyes again, sniffling and then looking toward the floor. "I was just reading."

"But you were crying..."

"I was not."

"Alright," the Doctor said. Sorry. I thought I heard something, but I suppose I might have misheard."

"It's okay," Hailey answered. "You probably heard the sound of the engines, or the heaters, or a radio that was left on somewhere, or something like that." She was clearly trying to find excuses without coming off as rude or standoffish in her behavior. He knew that she was just trying to let the whole thing just be forgotten all about.

He was certainly not blind the clear and obvious fact that his young student was greatly embarrassed and filled with shame at being caught in the act of such strong emotional expression, that she meant to keep to herself. After he'd realized that, he felt bad for walking in on her. He could easily imagine that if Rose had been with him before he walked in there, she'd have told him in the bluntest of terms to mind his own business. Hailey was after all, not in danger. She was simply crying. And if she'd needed or wanted help, she'd have gone seeking it herself. He made up his mind to simply walk off again. However as he turned his back, a small flash of inspiration struck him. He was still concerned about such loud and clearly emotionally pained crying, whether it was his business or not. She was, he could so clearly see, looking right at him with a strange look that poke wordlessly of relating to feelings and of wanting to understand something she could not name. She was almost pleading with him to help her, without speaking a word about needing him to. He only hoped that he could make her talk to him, and give him a chance to try.

"Any specific periods of history you've always wanted to visit?" he asked her, intent on casual chatter for a while. he sat down on the edge of her bed and leaned forward with his hands on his knees. "If I'm right in my guess that history was very likely your favorite school subject. You must have so many events and periods of time that you would love to see in person."

"Art was my favorite subject," Hailey said soundly still slightly distracted, but history came in a very close second. Same two favorite subjects year after year."

She smiled slightly and looked at him with clearly more interest now in conversing. "It was odd really. I mean who in high school loves to study events that happened hundreds of years ago, and read about people that were dead long before our great great great grand parents were born. It seemed a bit strange to some people, but often when I was not drawing or painting something or other I was reading some old book on Queen Victoria, or Benjamin Franklin, or someone else famous like that. Wait... how'd you guess that?"

"Well for one, you've been re-shelving books in the wrong spaces in the TARDIS library, and many of the misheleved books are from the Earth history section. Secondly, it was very predicable that studying the past would become one of your top few favorite interests. It's all part of your natural affinity for time and possibility. What was your third favorite? If I'm right again, it was either physics or political sciences."

Hailey looked impressed. "Physics was number three most years, if not all. Political science was nowhere near the top of the list. I think it would have fallen somewhere at the bottom, right near home economics."

"Not surprising at all. I'd figured you'd be more the science oriented type of person than a politics oriented one."

"So Time Lord society was made up mostly of scientific minds and political leaders, then?"

"A lot of it, yeah. There were many others though of course."

"I was reading today about the Gallifrain council, studying everything in the books to do with all their many functions and how they regulated and enforced non-interference and independent galactic progress, and all that. The council sounds so boring!"

"I have to agree with that opinion of yours," the Doctor said smiling. "Did I ever tell you I was once appointed president?"

"What? Seriously?" Hailey exclaimed.

"Yeah."

"What did you do? For the planet and the people I mean. You must have made so many changes."

"I ran away as fast as I could escape."

The Doctor said nothing more on the matter, and Hailey asked nothing more about it. She said nothing more about anything, and only looked at him for a moment with a conflicted look on her face. She was having fun chatting, but was still distracted - likely by whatever it was that happened to be the cause of her emotional outburst.

"Anything bothering you?" he asked her, deciding that he'd found a time to tactfully ask her about her earlier upset. "You just seem distracted and slightly emotional."

"I was upset by a book," Hailey admitted slowly and with obvious uncertainty. "Silly thing I know, being upset by a book. But it's more than that. I was looking at this art book I found in the library, a book that contains pictures of the great art works of your home planet. As I was looking at all of those lovely pictures depicting great architecture and lovers and children, and cities it's like I realized finally for the first time that this really was an actual place once. The race that thought it would never fall, that it was greater than any force in the universe just sudden gone without a chance of survival."

She wiped a tear from one of her eyes and looked down at the floor as she went on, speaker quieter. "They were just people. Impossible intelligent people of such great power, but still just people nevertheless. Families with children, and simple folk just living lives, killed in a war that many probably didn't even believe in. My father was forced to return home, only to end up dead himself along with everyone else. He was only one tiny and pretty much insignificant person the bigger picture though. What about all of those children. There must have been millions of small children too young to even see it all about to end. They never got to grow up. never got to know themselves, never got to be Time Lords." She began crying again harder than before, but she refused to look up.

"I'm sorry," she said, helplessly. "This is terrible. I don't know why I'm crying and I can't stop."

"Well don't be sorry for crying," the Doctor said. "Everyone cries, you know."

"I just don't understand what's happened to me. The whole matter of your home planet and the time war and all of that, was just a matter of interest before. Suddenly it;s like it all because real to me. So many innocent people never had a chance. And it feels if though they were my people as well, and I'll never get to meet any of them, never get a chance to visit my home world or learn what it all means."

For a brief moment, the Doctor only sat where he was, mentally debating the proper handling of such a situation. Finally he stood up and went over to stand closer to her, but did nothing more.

"Doctor," Hailey said after a moment in which neither said anything at all. She looked up at him with teary red eyes, and wet cheeks. "Why do we exist when billions of others died?"

"I used to ask myself that question every day," the Doctor said forcing his own tears to not fall. He leaned on the back of Hailey's desk chair, fighting with his own mind to not be carried away by overwhelming grief himself. "Finally I just stopped asking, and tried to understand something I know I'll never be able to. I suppose by now I've just started to accept it all the best I can. A person can never truly just accept that though."

"My father saved me in way," Hailey observed. "Without meaning to of course, but he did save me anyway. I was born on earth, so far from my rightful place and time. The year I was born, would have have been the distant past, relatively speaking, if I have all the date conversions right. He left me behind in a time and place in which my path would never normally have crossed the events of the war in any way. In my time, it's not even close to happening yet. I wonder if he knew."

"If he knew what?"

"Well if he knew that any of that would happen. When he left home and came to Earth, did he have any idea at all that it would all be destroyed soon after."

"Well being a Time Lord, he would have seen all possible time lines. He must have known it could happen. But that would only have been one of many possibilities for things to come. I'd say he likely dismissed it as the least likely outcome. Most did. I certainly did. Still, when you were born, he would have wished to protect you. That's why he left so fast when he was called home. That's why he just went back without trying to run. He didn't want the Time Lords to find you, and he certainly didn't want an enemy to find you."

Hailey was finished crying again by then. She wiped her eyes with a tissue and sniffled a bit while she looked up with both helplessness and confusion clear in her eyes.

"Didn't want the Time Lords to find me?" she asked quietly. "But they were my people too. Wouldn't they have protected me? Might they have seen the hope in one of them surviving,and let my mother keep me?"

"The Time Lords of old, yeah," the Doctor replied. He had his doubts about a sharing this bit of insight with her. He hadn't planned on telling her of the negative aspects Gallifrey and it's people. He'd never imagined a reason to destroy her innocent perspective of her origin. He saw now however that she needed to understand the darkness as well as the light. "By the end they were so corrupted by the desperation of near certain doom. The high council decided to do anything it had to in order to gain an advantage. Suddenly out of nowhere the oldest race in the universe, known only as one of non-interference, was launching devastating attacks on any other world whose people had anything at all to do with the war or could in any way understand time lines. Suddenly if you weren't on their side you were the enemy, and if you were of an unknown race, you were not worth trusting and certainly not worth protecting. Any species will act put of fear and take desperate measures in the face of it's own end. Any living creature will by nature put it's own survival above anything else under normal circumstances. Even humans show proof of that. If a thousand of them were trapped in a burning building with too few fire exits, people will trample each other to death. Anyway you can see my point. Time Lord society was changed by the war. It because so full of anger and mistrust and hate. It became a race of selfishness and thought for only itself."

"So if my father had refused to go back home... had refused to just leave his family...?"

"Well I'm not entirely certain, but if he'd not left willingly to meet up with the rest of the troops, then they'd have had to come and find him. If when they succeeded in that, your mother had spoken out against their intent she might have been killed, and you along with her."

Hailey's eyes grew wide with fright and disbelief.

"But everything written in any of the books makes it sound so wonderful and great. Gallifrey is supposed to be beautiful, and the Time Lords are supposed to be wise and positively intentioned people. Now you're trying to tell me they were murderers and terrorists?"

"Well not exactly murderers and terrorists. More like desperate survivors who had lost their sense of all they once stood for. It's... It's a very complicated thing." The Doctor said nothing more on the matter after that, and Hailey did not question him. Both of them were fully aware that the whole idea of a simple chat had quickly turned far more serious then either had ever meant it to become. Hailey was only trying to understand her own sudden grief for Gallifrey, and the Doctor had meant only to find out what was upsetting her. He quickly walked out of her room without another word, let the door shut much harder than intended, and stood leaning against the wall of the hallway outside shaking his head in frustration.

He had to admit to himself that strange as it was, he could not even be sur who he was actually frustrated with. He was so upset he certainly dared not go back to Rose, who was presumably still in the kitchen baking. His young student had insulted his people - no, their people - in a way that he was hardly certain he could just overlook and forget all about. He may have heard his race referred to in many ways that were none too positive on several occasions in his life of traveling, but never had he heard the Time Lords called murders and terrorists. He reasoned on some level that it was a comment said in innocence by a confused you person who had just learned that everything she'd come to believe in as great and good had a much darker and well hidden side. He reminded himself that Hailey didn't think of them in the same way he did. She'd never known any Time Lords but him, and a father that had died when she was a small child. She'd never seen the council in action, never studied at the academy. She'd had no idea at all of what they were perfectly capable of doing in the most desperate of times. In any case, he had taken it upon himself to bring her with him on board, and interfere yet again in the life of someone who should have been left to her own life. In his despair, he wondered if perhaps he had finally learned the lesson that the Time Lords had tried to shove into his head one way or another throughout his life. It was such a simple principle really; Don't interfere! In his frustration and shamefully misdirected anger, he slammed his fist against the wall of the TARDIS hard enough to nearly cause himself minor injury.

Rose was sitting in the captains chair in the console room magazine flipping through a fashion magazine, when the Doctor walked into the room and went straight to setting the controls. For several seconds she barely noticed a thing was wrong and went right on looking over photos of the latest in London's top fashion. It was the shaking start with which the ship dematerialized, that got her attention. She looked up at the Doctor, about to ask him why they had dematerialized in the first place, when the look on his face told her not to even bother. She dropped her magazine onto the seat and jumped to her feet at once. Within a second she stood near the Doctor at the console. He turned his back to her and brushed off her presence.

"Doctor?" she said quietly. "What's happened?"

He turned to look at her then, but only to give her a look that if she did not know and trust him with her very life, she'd have easily mistaken for his intending to inflict injury upon her if she spoke another word.

"Something happened. I know something's wrong. What is it? Are you alright?" she persisted against was could have been her better judgment.

"Rose, shut up please," the Doctor said. He couldn't help letting sadness show along with anger as he turned back to the console.

His companion grabbed him gently by the arm and forced him to turn and face her again. "Don't tell me to shut up," she said with determination. "Seriously, I know something completely horrible must have happened."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor answered and meant it. "No reason to be mad at you over this. I have to admit though, I have no idea at all what to do about Hailey. She said something that I can't even repeat right now. Sometimes I think she just isn't getting the important things fast enough. She's also so emotionally immature at times."

"But Hailey's only a year or two younger than me," Rose pointed out. "Anyway I don't think she's emotionally immature at all."

The Doctor was fully aware of the fact that Rose would probably find Hailey later on, ask her point of view on what had happened, and end up with two different sides of the story. That was, his logical mind told him, probably better in any case. He asked himself if he was overeating, but then decided in his annoyance that he was not at all.

"I just can't imagine why Hailey would say anything truly horrible enough to cause so much trouble on purpose," Rose said patiently. "Maybe you should talk to her again and find out what she meant. This has to be a misunderstanding."

"No, no, no," The Doctor mumbled back. "She knew exactly what she said and what that meant. In proper context it was a very nasty and completely ignorant comment."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm bringing her back to London. I think that bringing her with us was a bad idea. Trying to teach her anything was even worse. She could have gone on as just any human for the rest of her life and never missed much at all. All I've done is make a bigger mess."

"Doctor," Rose said quickly, as she backed out of the room. "Don't do anything right now. Give me, say, an hour to fix this."

"There isn't anything to fix. She's an ignorant young person, who doesn't know how to think in advance. In hindsight, I probably upset her life as much as she could mine."

"Please... just give me some time!" Rose hurried out of the room and into one of the many hallways.

~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~

Rose found Hailey in the sitting room - the third place she'd thought of looking for her - and sat down in a chair next to the one she was sitting in with her head on her bent knees. The student looked annoyed and sad and it was quite clear and plain that she had not been the only one responsible for the Doctor's thoughtless outburst in the console room.

"Hi," Hailey said, looking up and brushing a strand of blue hair from her face. She looked at her friend and sighed in frustration and confused emotion. "So I guess the Doctor sent you to come find me and talk with me. Honest to god, I have no idea what his problem is. If he's got a problem with me, he should be able to say it to my face instead of walking away and punching walls."

"He did what?" Rose asked in complete disbelief.

"Well I have no idea at all how the whole thing started," Hailey answered. "But we were just talking in my room, which I might add he just walked into and started talking to me. Anyways, we were talking in there and suddenly he just turns without a word, and walks out obviously getting madder by the second. He could hear him punch the wall out in the hallway."

"Well, like I told him, this has all got to be a misunderstanding. You wouldn't insult him on purpose, and certainly never enough to make him do that."

"No never."

"And he didn't send me to come and find you. Actually I don't think he really wanted me to at all. I suppose I just never learned to mind my own business."

"I think I might have accidently insulted Time Lord society," Hailey said after a moment or two spent in silent thought. "I mean... that's the only thing it could have been. We were just talking and he was answering my questions about my father's involvement in the time war." She shook her head in confusion.

"Okay, what did you say right before he got so clearly angry?" Rose asked, trying to piece the whole mess together.

"Well, " Hailey said, taking the time to think carefully and remember the details. "He said that he thought my father probably went home so willingly because among other things, there was a great risk that staying with my mother and me would have led his people to kill us. I said that it sounded as though the Time Lords were murders and terrorists from the way he was now describing them."

"I think I see now what the trouble is. Just apologize for saying that and he'll probably understand. He's been in arguments with me before. It's always worked out quickly enough."

"It doesn't matter. I'm leaving."

"I hardly think the Doctor will send you home and forget all about you over such a simple thing," Rose said calmly. "God knows there've been times I've really messed up good. Remind me to tell you some times about the day we went back in time to the day my father died. You wouldn't think that saving someone who was meant to be dead would matter so much, but the world was nearly destroyed. Anyway, even after all that, he still never gave up on me."

"Oh I'm sure he'll get over it," Hailey replied with tears welling up in her eyes, but not falling. "I'm choosing to leave of my own free will. I'm just going to pack up, and then ask him politely to bring me back home."

"But you can't just leave," Rose said in surprise at how much worse the situation was than she'd assumed. "The three of us are a team now."

"No. You and the Doctor are a team. I'm just kind of here, never being good enough no matter how hard I try."

"Don't do anything yet," Rose demanded with great determination in her voice. "Stay where you are. Give me a bit of time to get this all sorted out."

"There's nothing to sort out," Hailey called after her as she walked quickly back down the same hallway she'd just used shortly before.

"Doctor?" Rose called upon entering the console room again, and finding it empty. She had been so full of concern moments before over all the whole situation involving the other two on board. Finding the room empty though, when it had been occupied not long before, made her concern worse, considering the circumstances.

The Doctor stepped out of the storage closet at the edge of the room, pocketing something small he was holding in his hand. The look of anger and sadness he'd had on his face not so long ago was gone, and he walked over to the controls and started to flip a few switches with his usual kind of enthusiasm.

"I hate to be the barer of bad news Doctor, but we have a situation," Rose said, walking up behind him, and finally standing at the console beside him.

"This looks like it's just a day for situations," the Doctor said, not sounding angry, but clearly not at all happy about the prospect of more trouble on board either. He completed the series of button pressing he was busy with, presumably giving complicated instruction to the ship, and then he looked up. "Okay tell me. What's going on now?"

"Doctor, I trust you're familiar with a common Earth saying; don't shoot the messager..."

"Yeah."

"Hailey is talking about packing her bag ready to leave the TARDIS."

"Well that's probably for the best then," the Doctor said quietly and completely serious.

"You can't mean that," Rose exclaimed. "You can't really want her to go, all of a sudden. Not after everything you two have done together. You've taught her so much that you could never teach even me. She's starting to find herself, because you bothered to notice something strange and amazing about her!"

"I don't want her to leave. I was never really going to send her home. But if she's made up her mind for herself that she wants to go, well then she should."

Rose sat down and watched silently for a moment as he stared at the monitor with conflicted look spreading over his face. She could barely read his mood at all, or predict his reaction to further unsolicited advice. Eventually she spoke up, when it was clear that he was not going to say anything more himself.

"You were the last of the Time Lords - the only survivor of a tragedy so horrible it's no wonder you are such a confusing person emotionally at times. I think many people, if they were the last of anything and had to live with the memories of the things you must have seen, would just give up living, and after not so long they'd die themselves. But you didn't. You kept on going." She fidgeted with a loose thread on the bottom edge of her jacket and tried to gauge the Doctor's reaction to her words. At least he was listening. That had to be a good sign, she decided. He was looking at her with a curious expression. She got to her feet again. "You have me of course, and other friends on Earth, but it's not the same. Now you're not alone anymore. You aren't the last of the Time Lords. I think that the two last of your people shouldn't just give up on each other."

The Doctor looked at her for a moment more. For those impossibly dragging seconds he hardly seemed to blink. Tears came to his eyes, and he blinked then, to rid himself of them. Finally a smile appeared on his face and he moved forward a couple of steps.

"Rose! You are completely right!" The Doctor's smile turned to a look of disbelief and fright for brief second, and he muttered quietly and almost under his breath. "Whatever happened to my sense of right? The Time Lords always remained so committed to one another and our society. And I was just about to let her just walk off confused and angry?"

The two of them sat in the console room for a while, both of them silent and contemplating. After a time, they began to speak with one another again. They decided that Hailey would change her mind abut leaving and decide that if the Doctor wasn;t asking her to go, then she'd want to stay. Moving on from the confusion of earlier in the day, they began to discuss the next place and time they might visit. It was agreed that Hailey would be asked to choose the next place they went. After all, she never seemed to say much in the way of places or periods of interest, and therefore had always been inadvertently overlooked in that regard. With the chaos of the morning all but forgotten about, they began to laugh about a past occurrence at a festival on some alien world they'd landed on by mistake many months before. They were still laughing and talking and in good and positive moods, when Hailey wandered into the console room with a look of clearly false confidence on her face, a suitcase in her hand, and her backpack over her shoulders.


	12. Chapter 12

** A/N;** **Thank you so much everyone for your positive reviews so far. It's made my day to find that someone is actually still reading this. I can't believe this is the 12th chapter though. I didn't think this story would end up this long... and it's not really **_**that **_**close to the ending yet. There will probably be a few more chapters yet to go. Also, no promises on this, but today at work I was thinking over the idea of a possible sequel to come. **

** This chapter contains mention of and reference to the time war, which of course I know next to nothing about. (It seems no one really does. There is nothing much at all mentioned on the television series.) So I did what any author does best in such a case. I exercised creative license and I speculated. **

"You still want to leave then I take it?" the Doctor asked, looking up at his young student as she held into the straps of her bag. He was filled with regret over a misunderstanding, that had so obviously gotten so completely out of control. He dreaded her answer, though he already knew what it would be. He saw Hailey nod her head slowly, and his understanding of the situation was quickly confirmed.

"You can't just leave," Rose said, jumping to her feet. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

She was so greatly upset by the idea of her good friend leaving the life of adventure through time and space by her own choice. It bothered her so much more to think of her just outright leaving and walking away from it all, because she so obviously belonged on board in involved in such a life. The girl had so recently found her own heritage and began to learn so very much. In a few short months, she'd gained so much in the way of confidence. She'd leaned her own sense of self worth and found a place not only on Earth, but in the universe. Rose had to admit it to herself, that as much as the fact saddened her Hailey belonged with the Doctor probably even more than she did.

All was silent in the console room for a few long moments, before the Doctor finally decided that since no one else was speaking, he had better say something.

"You don't have to leave, you know," he said calmly. "If you really do want to go, of course I'll take you home, but that's not my idea of a happy ending."

"I... I know." Hailey replied quietly, looking at the floor. "I just feel that's the best thing to do."

"Put your backpack down for a minute. No need to stand around holding onto that heavy thing," the Doctor said. He took the pack from her as she slid the straps over down off her shoulders, and set into down onto the floor as she reluctantly slid out of the straps. He led her to sit down and he sat beside her. "Now, why do you really want to leave?"

Hailey sat quietly, looking at her knees and fidgeting nervously. She had no clue what to say. Of course honestly was the best way that she knew of on a basic level, to handle this situation. But throughout her life, honesty had only seemed to lead to insults and violence. Finally, convincing herself that she didn't care how badly things ended, yet still unable to really accept the idea of more attacks against her someone who promised to protect her, she spoke up.

"I feel very uncomfortable around so much anger and resentment," she explained. She went on quickly, determined to avoid her point being misunderstood. "I mean, I know we are all just who we are, and it's not as though you'd actually beat me up or anything. I lived for years with a man though who used to punch the walls in his house when someone said something he didn't want to hear. A wall was only a wall, until one night he hit his wife so hard he busted her nose."

"It's too bad children have to be around that sort of thing," the Doctor replied slowly. "That's one of that sad things that's always stood out about humans; the way some of them are just so quick to go after each other with their fists. Someone hitting a wall though doesn't always mean they are going to one day hit a person. I'd have a terrible time keeping companions around for long if I went around hitting them for making mistakes."

"That's true," Hailey mumbled quietly. "I guess I just got so tired of getting hit and seeing others hurt all the time. I get so nervous about someone punching the walls."

The Doctor looked at Rose with anger in his eyes. This time though it was caused by something completely different than his earlier upset had been. He looked at the floor for a moment, rid himself of the look that had come over his face, and them looked up at Hailey who still sat looking at her knees.

"It's always the children that suffer for other's inability to get their own minds together," he muttered almost under his breath.

"I'm sorry," Hailey said. She looked up at him, with unshed tears shinning in her eyes. "I know you'd never just decide to hit anyone. I hate being such a messed up idiot."

"You aren't an idiot," Rose said, stepping closer to the two of them. "Your childhood is not your fault. The way a person grows up is never their own fault."

"I just hate feeling so paranoid and uncomfortable with so much. I want to be able to just assume that someone who is mad at me or someone else, is just angry and not ready to hit someone. I hate fearing that every time someone raises their voice, someone else might get hurt. I wish I'd gotten to have something that at least resembled a happy childhood."

Hailey looked for a minute from one of them to the other and then back and forth a few times, silently. Finally her eyes went back to the Doctor, and she looked at him sadly.

"I'm sorry for saying something so stupid earlier. I didn't mean it the way it probably sounded. I didn't mean to say that I thought your people were actually murderers and terrorists. I just couldn't understand why you seemed to say they did things that could imply such if I didn't know any better."

The Doctor didn't bother to give a reply to Hailey's last statement. Both were sure it was best that the whole morning was forgotten all about, and without either mentioning any such thing, it seemed there was a mutual agreement between everyone to simply drop the matter for the time being. It was only after a couple of long silent minutes that he spoke again. "I have a place in mind to take us to. There's something I want to show you."

"You're so sure I want to stay with you two then?" Hailey asked, understanding his intention immediately.

"Pretty sure, yeah," the Doctor said. "You're part of the team. There will be a time you'll leave for some reason or another, I'm sure, but I don't think it's now."

"I think you're right. I suppose leaving now would be a bit silly."

"Yeah. And you have a chapter exam coming up soon."

"I still have to study for that one," Hailey said. "Hey, did you ever get around to grading the last one I handed in?"

"Ninety-six percent. I graded it yesterday," the Doctor said, stepping back toward the console again. "Don't worry so much about studying right now though. Plenty of time to do that later. Honestly I think you study too much most days."

"How can someone study too much?" Hailey asked, with a laugh. "Isn't that a good thing."

"Well yeah... but back in my school days, the academy bookworms and the top students were the boring sort. So, off we go then?"

"Ready."

"Ready," Rose said, adding her agreement to Hailey's.

The TARDIS materialized after a short flight, and hit the ground in one of it's rougher landings. All three of it's occupants were thrown from their feet and onto the floor near where they had been standing at the console. Rose fell onto her backside, and slowly stood back up again with serious concerns about possible bruises present in her mind. Hailey had flown backwards several feet and come within inches of banging into one of the support beams. She pulled herself to her feet quickly, with her eyes filled with concern. The Doctor had at least been hanging onto something when they landed, therefore he simply stumbled, let go of it and landed on the floor safely. He stood back up, and looked from one of his companions to the other to be sure both her unharmed.

"Nice driving skills," Rose said, her voice full of sarcasm. "Though certainly no worse than most drivers in London over rush hour."

"What the heck was that all about?" Hailey mumbled. "We've landed hundreds of times and never risked injury."

"Sorry, I think I might have forgotten to set the gravity compensators," the Doctor explained, looking over the monitor mounted on the control panel. He walked toward the door with both of the ladies following close behind. Slowly he walked off the ship. Rose walked off right behind him and Hailey hung back for a few long seconds before she too walked through the doors. The mood had become serious once again. Both of them could sense it the moment the Doctor had pulled open the door.

They looked slowly around them at the less than cheerful landscape they'd landed in the midst of. They stood near the edge of a steep, rock littered dusty cliff. Down below as far as they could see, a desert wasteland of gray ash colored sand and jagged shards of rock spread out for what could easily have been miles and miles. Here and there, over the landscape, buildings made of bricks and stone lay in various stages of ruin and destruction. Some were crumbled to piles of white dust and a few metal and wood support beams, while others stood still stable and sound in structure, with missing walls or parts of roofs. Wide paths of crumbling concrete covered in heavy layers of dust, that had clearly once been roads, lay between the building structures, and burned out bodies of vehicles sat in a disorganized mess over the remains of those roads On the edge of what seemed to be the boundary on the edge of the area, there stood long dead blackened trees, and small piles of their fallen branches.

"There used to be a town down there," Hailey observed aloud. Her voice was sad. "Now it's just a pile of rubble in the middle of a desert wasteland. It looks like people were just minding their own business, living their lives not expecting a thing at all, and suddenly everything was just destroyed."

"Doctor, where are we?" Rose asked. The place made her nervous and even slightly frightened her.

"What happened to this place?" Hailey questioned. She stepped closer to the edge of the cliff and looked more closely at the ruins below.

"This place, the village below... the whole planet... was ravaged by war," the Doctor explained. He walked closer to the cliff's edge to stand with Hailey. Rose followed him slowly.

"The people that lived and worked here were just carrying about their day, when the first of the bombs went off," he continued explaining, as he stood with his companions on either side of him. There was a a little bit of warning, but only an hour at most. Some made a run for their ships and a few others made it to the teleports. There wasn't enough time though. The few ships that managed to launch, were destroyed, and everyone on the ground was killed. You could count the total number of survivors on the fingers of both hands."

Hailey could tell from the look in his eyes, that this world and this war mattered to him perhaps much more than a tragedy normally would have. It seemed to him to be almost personal. Her young mind tried to imagine what might have happened to the planet. How horrible, it must have been, she knew, for an entire world to be suddenly no more.

"Who were they?" she asked. He looked back at her, as though he'd barely heard her. "The people of this planet I mean. Who lived here before the war destroyed them?"

"It was mostly Time Lords here," the Doctor answered, staring distractedly over the wasteland of dust and brick and ruin.

"Is this your planet?" Rose asked, the shock of the latest revelation evident in her voice. "This can't be all that's left of your world."

"Gallifrey and everything that had do with the end of the time war is time locked. I couldn't bring you there if I wanted to," the Doctor answered. He sounded completely matter of fact, but yet sad all the same.

"A time locked event?" Hailey mused out loud. "In other words, nothing can ever again get in or out. So then where are we? What did it have to do with the Time Lords?"

"This was one of our off world planetary outposts. The first one we ever claimed. The planet was uninhabited before our society found it and made a claim on it. This world eventually housed many of the people that choose to live off the home world, but wished to continue their work and lifestyle. At the time of it;s destruction, it was just full mostly of younger people, trying to make names for themselves at the scientific centers, and students at a few small alternate schools. Anyway one night somebody tracked a signal from a ship coming in with hostile intent. He overheard the intention to target the place with a high powered particle energy bomb. He warned the people, but there was no time to react properly.

"After word made it back to Gallifrey that an entire Time Lord outpost had been targeted with such extreme violence, in a completely unprovoked attack, the council decided that if this happened again law of non-interference or not, something would have to be done. It was months later that the next of our off world outposts - a small space station - was attacked and blown to pieces without even a half hour's warning. It became perfectly clear that our civilization was being picked off a few people at a time here and there. It happened again in a few weeks, but this time Gallifrey was prepared. This time the department of defense was able to crack the enemy's camouflage codes, and find and track them, after the attack on another of our stations. Our battle fleet, followed their trail and finally shoot one of their ships down over our airspace. We later learned it wasn't actually going to bomb us, just try to confuse us. In any case that's exactly what they were waiting for us to do. As soon as we attacked back they viewed it as a full on war, and thus began the time war."

"So then Gallifrey was tricked into starting the time war?" Hailey asked, her question more of a statement than anything else. The answer was already plainly obvious to her.

"That's terrible," she said, sitting down on the sandy ground at the cliff's edge and contemplating while she spoke. A loose rock bounced down the cliff face and disapeared from sight. "They just provoked and provoked attack until there was no choice but to do just that and attack back. They were looking for a war with the Time Lords all along, but they didn;pt want to be the only ones firing on anyone."

"Oh, I'm sure they'd have not minded being the only ones attacking anyone," the Doctor explained, sitting beside her. "This was a race intent on wiping the Time Lords from existence entirely. A war would make it far more likely that others would get involved. This was a fleet that wanted to see others pulled into it all. With that one ship shoot down by our people, and that only as an act of self defense, we left it at that and asked them to stop their attacks. The Time Lords didn't want a war. Our pleas for piece made no difference, and it quickly came down to either go to war with the enemy, or sit by and and stay out of it while they destroyed ever off world base we had. Our people had to defend ourselves. It became a matter of basic survival instinct. When they started to fire weapons at Gallifrey itself and take so many lives there, we fought back against them harder. Of course other races were dragged right into it, most only defending themselves and a few defending us."

He went on speaking. "It's so hard to say for sure really who technically started it. As tends to be the case in war, everyone was pointing fingers at someone else. There were tow main sides to it and both of us were raging furious at each other, hardly in a mood to reason things out anymore. It got so far out of control so fast. This was a battle between two of the oldest and most advanced races in the universe. The wars on Earth, the wars that you would know of, in the more recent of times, have been fought mostly with relatively primitive guns and explosive devices... and that; gets tragic and downright dirty enough. The time war was fought with anti- matter bombs, the use of conjured armies from parallel dimensions, time machines, and things worse than you could ever understand of imagine. The very structure of time itself was compromised and had the war not be put to a stop, ten entire universes would have eventually fallen into nothingness and never have existed."

"I think I understand now what you wanted me to realize," Hailey said quietly. Her look of sad comprehension matched the Doctor's look of sad acceptance. "They did the only thing they could by continuing to fight until nothing was left standing. Someone must have eventually put an end to the whole thing by destroying it all and then time locking the entire main area of the event. Whoever it was that finally did that, he was only doing the only thing he could have done as well. The Time Lord that made the final move saved reality."

The Doctor stood looking out over war torn and devastated landscape. Hailey had surprised him again. It had been too long, he realized completely, since he'd known and traveled with another Time Lord. He'd grown so used to being around humans and the way most human minds seemed to work. Of course this was not at all a bad thing. There was so much he loved and admired about every human he'd even befriended. But something about Hailey was so different from everything he'd become so accustomed to. She had a way of understanding things related to the time as a science instead of just something that happened and then was gone moment by moment. Her mind understood time and reality in a way that no human ever could. She had the kind of mind, in that regard, that he quickly realized he'd forgotten to openly acknowledge within his own thinking. She showed him all over again, why he was different from the people he'd taken to forming such close friendships with,a nd she understood the things they could never learn. He forced his own mind to remember that she was only a student yet, still years and years away from being anywhere near her full capacity for knowledge and understanding. She had not yet even completed an initiation, which while he had so often looked back and seen the overall practice as it was done in his life time and the several generations before his own, as somewhat brutal and wrong, the overall principal behind it was a necessary and important step to make. The possibilities of what she might be capable of after that, were a matter of wonder.

He made his way back to the TARDIS quickly, realizing that all three of them were equally motivated to get out of that place as soon as they could. The purpose of the trip had been filled and there was little reason at all to stay someplace where they were all becoming at least slightly depressed. He shut the door behind the two young women as they entered, and all three stood looking at one another, with sad eyes and somber expressions. Making his way back to the console to dematerialize back into the time vortex, the Doctor continued on in his intent thinking. Hailey had made the mental step in understanding that if the time war was a time locked event, then someone must have placed it into the time lock in the first place. She had stated her realization out loud. She'd said she understood the reason for the action, and implied that it made sense to her that it had happened as it had. She said that the one to make that tragic decision to end the war by destroying their own planet and the entire Time Lord civilization had saved the universe. She was so forgiving, but then again, she still had no idea at all, who the one had been that had actually carried out that final desperate action in order to save reality.

Could he ever tell her it had been him? This question ran through his mind as he set the controls. She appeared to easily forgive the anonymous destroyer of Gallifrey and the Time Lords, but could she just as easily forgive a man whose identity she knew well? The loss of her father was the event that had so very likely set her life onto it's tragic path. The innocence of her childhood had been crushed by the events his disappearance had caused. Could she ever again think of him with anything other than hate, if she ever knew it was him who might have taken her father from her?

"Well," he said, smiling again and trying in his customary way, to hide his despair. He flipped a blue switch that was just within arms reach of where he stood. "Either of you have any place in mind you'd like to visit next?"

~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~

Hailey happily took a seat at at a corner table in the small town cafe, and looked around a bit. The place was certainly cozy and cheerful, with it's old fashioned and bright decor. It reminded her slightly of the photos of traditional English cottages she'd so often seen in home decorating and real estate magazines. She read the day's lunch specials written on a chalkboard near the doors, and hung her black denim jacket over the back of her chair.

"I come here once in a while for lunch with a few of the other ladies from the hospital, that have off site privileges," Abigail Andrews explained, as she took her own seat. "It's so nice to be able to get out once in a while and do something as normal and typical as eating in a lovely little cafe in the village. So, how have you been? You still traveling around seeing the world?"

"I've been good for the most part. It's been... well... interesting would sum it up well. And yes, I'm still traveling around." Hailey looked around the restaurant, almost relieved at finding a moment of doing something so typically as going out for lunch with her mother. She looked around again, almost expecting some alien beast to teleport inside the cafe, or a sudden Earthquake to shake the foundations of the place. She would not have be terribly surprised if the people out in the street began screaming in fright at a spaceship in the air overhead. The months she'd spent with the Doctor and Rose had been far from dull, but they had also made her used to disaster and chaos striking so often when they seemed only to have the intention of leisurely activities and peacefully minding their own business. Sure there were plenty of times they did travel to far off places and simply enjoy uneventful trips. But if she had to put a number on it she'd have to say that seventy percent of the time they found themselves either running for their lives, or reasoning with doom bent aliens.

"Bring your friends with you one day, when you come to visit again," Abigail said. "I'd love to meet them."

"I'm sure they'd like to visit one day. Rose is just a typical Londoner, well sort of anyway. she's an adventurer now. And the Doctor... well he's sort of different."

"How do you mean different? Nothing too terribly questionable, I hope. Sorry, I know I shouldn't poke my nose into your life. But I missed so many years of chances to be a proper mother. Even though you grew up, and faster than you should have had to I might add, I still find myself so concerned."

"Nothing questionable," Hailey said. "Just... I have no idea if you'd understand or not. Years in an institution because of things that happened years ago. I don't know how you see reality now, what you think is true or untrue."

"Hailey, what does any of this have to do with this friend of yours?" Abigail questioned with her concern evident in her voice. She lowered her voice so that anyone who happened to be sitting in the still nearly empty cafe would not overhear anything. She stared at her daughter with a look somewhere between excitement and dread over what she might say next.

"I know who my Dad was," Hailey blurted, keeping her voice low and looking to make sure no on else was listening. "More accurately I know what he was. I still barely know who he was as a person, but I do know where he came from. The official records say he was thought to be from Northern England, but I know he came from somewhere farther away then that."

"Hailey... this is not a matter to take lightly..."

"I know Mum. I haven't taken lightly at all. But Gallifrey and the Time Lords; all that has meaning to me now. I understand it and now my whole life is actually starting to make sense!"

"Well then I'm happy. Every time I thought of you while you were growing up- and believe me, I thought of you very often - my greatest regret was that you would grow up and never know what you really are. I feared so much that you would never know of anything you had going for you, or realize you had a place in the universe bigger than just a simple life on this Earth. But Hailey, how does that relate to the Doctor? I'm still a bit confused. And how did you find anything out about... Unless..." Abigail paused for a second, and looked over top of the cafe menu she held in her hands. "Is he...one of...?"

Hailey only nodded, understanding her mother's questioning right away. Finally, after her own moment's pause and a look at her menu to continue appearing casual and not worthy of the attention of others, she spoke. "Mum, I actually did it. I managed to meet another of the Time Lords. I don't know how in this huge universe, but we found each other. We are probably the last two." She fought back tears of sudden emotion as she went on, this time passing on bad news. "It's all gone. Gallifrey is destroyed. Millions dead and long forgotten in a time that technically form your perspective won't come to be for thousands of years yet."

"So that means that you father really is likely dead then?"

"It's basically certain. Dad is never coming back. Mum, I'm sorry. I know you must have held out hope all these years..."

"I suppose I did. But I also kind of knew he was gone and never coming home. This was never his home of course, but he made it his home. I think I understood years ago that I'd lost him forever, and I just started to accept that."

"Hailey, I'm sorry you never got to know your Dad," Abigail said after their food had arrived. She spoke in a slightly more normal volume now, and with far less concern for anyone listening. After all, this was certainly a typical thing that could have been said by people in reference to far more typical human situations. "He left when you were too little to really remember him of course, but I know that if he were still here today he'd be so proud. He would have loved to hear that you've learned so much." She lowered her voice again and leaned in closer, over the top of the table. "So I take it then you're not just traveling around Europe like I first thought and assumed."

Hailey shook her head as she took a bite of her sandwich.

"All of time and space to see and experience? Lives to change and so many great lessons to learn?"

Hailey nodded. This time though she also smiled, as she put the sandwich down onto her plate.

"Come back with me to the hospital when we're done lunch," Abigail said. "I have something I want to give you?"

~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~

Rose wandered the halls of the TARDIS the same evening, hours after the trip they'd made to take Hailey to see her mother again. She found Hailey sitting in the library in what had fast become her favorite chair in that room, intently reading from a dark blue hard cover notebook that looked unlike anything she'd ever seen her use in her studies until then. She sat down nearby in another chair and when the Hailey looked up and smiled her acknowledgment, she spoke up.

"What are you reading?"

"Oh," Hailey answered slowly. "My mother gave this to me today. It's my father's journal. He wrote in it while he was alive and living on Earth. He wrote in the Gallifrain language, and she's never been able to read it. She said she wanted me to have it and the I'd likely be able to translate it. Apparently she was able to keep the book with her in the hospital because, there was no clear reason for anyone to confiscate it."

"Can you read the language?"

"Well the TARDIS translates for me, so it's much easier to read. Same with my textbooks. I can sort of read the language now though. It's weird. Sometimes when I'm studying those old books, the translator will just shut off. Suddenly I see the words as they were really printed, like all symbols and very confusing. The first time that happened I put the book down and wondered what was up with the translation circuit. Slowly though, as it happened more often I started to recognize more and more of the words and letters. I can read it now, but I'm very slow at it. I'd rather just read English. Actually, this is even weider, but so often now in dreams whenever I talk to anyone, I seem to be speaking and hearing this new language instead of English. Learning to read it made seems to have triggered my mind's ability to speak and understand too. I never did figure out though what's up with the translator. I should ask the Doctor but it always slips my mind."

"Perhaps the TARDIS was trying to teach you the language," Rose suggested.

"The ship's alive, you know," she continued, when Hailey only looked at her with her eyebrows raised in great confusion. "He's said that to me a few times now. I'm still not sure exactly what that means, but perhaps it can think and reason and act independently at times."

The two fell silent and soon they both happily continued with what they had been doing. Hailey went on with her reading, and Rose announced that supper would be ready within an hour.

"Doctor," Hailey said upon finding him in the library, just sitting quietly with a book in his lap that he was clearly not reading. It was another late late on board the ship, and while Rose slept, they were docked motionless on the shore of some distant alien beach. She chose a chair near his and flopped down into it, sitting sideways with her legs over the arm of the chair. "Is the TARDIS really alive?"

He looked up at her, blinked at the suddenness of her question with no clear context, and laughed slightly. "Well if that wasn't random, I don't know what is."

Hailey laughed too too, and then explained. "Rose said something today about the ship being alive, but she really wasn't able to explain much about it. How can a time ship be alive?"

The Doctor sat quiet for a second, trying to figure out how to correctly explain something he'd long understood without ever trying to put into exact words and teach to someone else. "Well she isn't a living thing as you would normally think of life. The ship is telepathic and very empathic. It can communicate on some level with the mind of pretty much anyone intelligent. That's how it's able to translate language in your head. As for the empathic part of the whole system, that's a much more complex thing. It can understand a person innermost need or desire. Given an opportunity, it can scan the time lines and work out the best way to bring a needed event or thing into being. There are many other things too that it's capable of."

"Well does it have emotions? Like, say someone said it was stupid or that it was a terrible shade of blue, would it be sad? Would it even understand what the person said?"

The Doctor gave a look of intent thought for a brief moment. "Well you certainly do have a way of thinking up the interesting questions that no one's even really come up with an answer to, do you? I've never really thought much about that before. No, it wouldn't understand exactly what you said, especially if you spoke out loud. A TARDIS can't actually hear. It's understanding is based on it's being able to sense feelings, emotions and telepathic thought. I suppose if someone insulted her, she might be able to sense the strong feeling of negativity toward it, but it would probably not be all offended and sad about it."

"Can it feel sad and offended at all, or does it just have very high self esteem?" Hailey's question may well have sounded outrageous and silly, and indeed as soon as she voiced it out loud it sounded so ridiculous it was almost laughable. But she was completely serious and the Doctor understood that.

"It doesn't have self esteem at all as we would know it. It has too limited of a sense of self for that. It can't get truly offended either for that same reason."

"Well what if someone kicked it, or dumped cold water on the outside door, or something? Would it feel it, and know what happened?"

"No. It doesn't have that kind of awareness."

"Well can it get scared?"

"It has several times. All that is based only on empathic feelings and what we would best know as intuition though. No primal fear instinct, driven by self preservation, like that present in us and other typical life forms."

"So," Hailey said, catching on to an idea she could still barely imagine relating to on a personal level, "it probably doesn't actually hear us then, or see us; but it sees and hears our emotions and thoughts and learns to tell us apart that way somehow?"

"Well, that's another good question..." The doctor stopped for a moment to think,a dn he found himself confused, before he thought over again what she had said. "Actually that's a good way to explain it I suppose."

"Well what would happen if it sensed or understood something that it just didn't like? if that ever were to happen, given it's nature, whatever it sensed it would have to have a problem with for a good and true reason right? There would have to be some kind of logic to it's impression. What would it do?"

"Well that really depends on what it was that it had an impression of and about. It would probably sound alarms to get my attention. If it was very bad and really bothersome I guess it might actually run away from whatever that something was."

"Wow," said Hailey, standing up from her chair. "So you mean it can actually fly by itself? That's like something out of a science fiction movie."

"It sort of can, but not exactly."

"Well hopefully your ship doesn't just decide one day to get scared to death of something terrible and run away from us on some alien planet!"

The Doctor stood up from his own chair and walked with his student through the doors of the sitting room and back out into the hallway. He smiled and laughed. "Well see, that would be part of what I meant by not entirely able to fly itself. It could never take off with no one inside and actually in at least partial command of the controls."

"It's sure a cool machine," Hailey said. "But doesn't quite seem to fit most people's common definition of alive."

"No, you're right. It doesn't at all. But still alive though, nevertheless."


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N; This chapter is a a tiny bit scary in parts. (Or at least I certainly hope it is, as that's what I was trying to do with it.) Nothing graphic though and nothing at all M rated or anything like that. Also more creative license was taken here, this time with unknown information about the Gallifrain academy. **

_ July 17th, 1990_

_ I've been contemplating so much today. Quite possible far too much, Abigail would tell me if she only knew even half of the wonderings and simple curiosities that flow through my mind on a near hourly basis, that I think too much. She is sitting nearby as I write in this notebook; sitting in her favorite chair near the fireplace doing nothing more than watching the flames and trying to write out a grocery list on pink patterned list paper. It was her idea that I begin a journal of my life here, in a city on world so far from home. She's said time and again over the last four months that we've been making our best attempt at a life for me here, that she simply cannot handle the constant stream of thought that I relay to her verbally in the course of what I realize must be steady and endless rambling on and on. I know so well that I must confuse and baffle her entirely some times, likely far more often than I wish to admit to myself. I must seem so impossibly well versed in things she cannot even start to wrap her head around, yet so childlike and clueless in the things she takes as such a matter of course in day to day life. Her looks when she tries to understand how it is I can work outside in the garage on a makeshift teleportation beam detector, and then come inside, switch on the television and laugh like a four year old human child at some cartoon from America while asking in confusion why some character would sit on a peanut butter sandwich, bewilders yet also greatly amuses her._

_ Watching Abigail, by the fire doing that simple task of deciding what to purchase when we do tomorrow's shopping, I wonder once more if we can really make it here together. There are so many differences in everything from the way our minds work, to our physiology and certainly life expectancies. Yet, I made my choice. She was the one I chose to commit myself and my life too, and I do not regret it for a second. The last months of my of my life have certainly been different from anything I've ever experienced before. But I have loved it all so far. My surprise that we've made it several months together in her house, living something close to typical human life for the most part, fades away into nothingness as I see a possible future within the time lines._

Laying facedown on her bed, with her legs bent at the knees and raised into the air, Hailey read the words written twenty years before by her long dead farther. The words brought a smile to her face, as she imagined her parents as a newlywed couple, before she had come to be. She wished she could see a photograph of them back then. She'd seen very few photos of her mother - none from quite that far back. And she'd never seen one of her father at all. The only images she'd ever seen of him were in her memories. It occurred to her suddenly, that she should simply ask her mother if she had any photo albums. She was in the institution of course, but she had been in there for many years and it seemed she did have a lot her own things. Perhaps she actually did own such a common thing as that. She dared to hope, and she looked forward to a chance to ask her.

She found herself yawning, but she felt as well and just as strongly, the anxiety of a nightmare she'd recently woken from, return as her body began to tire itself out. She shook her head to rid herself of the feeling, and yawning again, she moved back to the head of her bed and climbed back under the warmth of the covers. Picking up the book again she decided to read another entry. She thought quite logically that if she could just fill her mind with positive thoughts of her parent's lives back in the good days, and let herself get far more tired out, she might sleep in a better state of mind. She turned the page and read the words, letting herself once again be caught up in the true story of twenty years before.

_August 3rd, 1990_

_ Tonight we are going to a party. A friend of Abigail's has recently moved into a new home, and has invited us to what Abigail tells me is known as a house warming party. Strange that she should have to warm up her house in August. One would think it would receive enough heat from outside through the windows and walls, that even un-lived-in it should be a comfortable temperature for habitation. Stranger still that the act of warming up her house should warrant a party to which we will be wearing our decent and respectable clothing. Why have a party at all? Come to think of it, who wants to attend a party in a cold house? I suspect that the phrase 'house warming party' mustn't mean what it implies in the literal sense. _

_ Abigail asked me earlier not to walk up to the others at this house warming party and start talking about advanced inter-dimensional physics, or the science of antimatter to energy conversion, or any other things that people might find either strange or boring and confusing. Talk about simple everyday things that everyday simple human folks can understand, she said. There are so many subjects that have come to interest me so greatly in the last year. Import cars, home renovation, ancient Greek mythology, the stock market, and so many others. I wonder if any other friends of this friend of hers share any of those interests. _

_ I suppose overall that I'm looking quite forward to this little gathering of people. I've been out and about in the city gong about typical human business of course, and never seemed to be out of place at all. But this will be my first time attending a party on Earth. In such a confined space, in such a social situation, can I actually appear to be just another decent and typical person? Abigail has always wanted me to hide who I am, and everything I know about time and space and the universe from most people here. She has so often reminded me that the Earth on a whole, is just not ready for the things I've taught and shown her and that she's accepted as truth so quickly._

_ August 14th, 1990_

_ I've spent time today contemplating the idea of who I actually am, and who have the potential to become. Abigail says that in life, we all change so much over a number of years, that so often we may barely recognize the selves we were twenty years ago. The simplest answer to the question of who I am, would be that I am James Andrews, but aside from being of so little consequence when I think of the many aspects a person consists of aside from simply a name, it also still feels so untrue. James Andrews is a perfectly typical name for a typical man in this time and place. But what is to become of Shenrandan Broguezal, the man I used to be, and really still am? Abigail laughed so hard when I first told her my name. She said that she can barely figure out how to say it, let alone ever learn to spell it. She decided out loud many months ago that she would just call me James, and whenever a last name was required, it could be Andrews. I suppose over all, I really don't mind. But all the same, I don't think she will ever understand the significance of a name. _

_ A human, as far as I understand it, is named at birth by their parents and that's normally the matter settled. On Earth a person most often has their parent assigned name for life more or less as a way for every person in an area to address each other without confusion. There are other reasons, and even a lot of significance behind it too, I know - but in my mind that's the simplest explanation. Many Time Lords choose our adult names for ourselves, or rather, we 'find' or 'learn' our names, and use them for the remaining centuries of our lives. Abigail will likely never be able to grasp the importance of a specific name among my people. I don't think I will ever truly accept her need to take it upon herself to change my name. All the same though, I understand her many complex and simple reasons for it, and I somehow love her even more._

Hailey put the notebook down on the nightstand and then reached over to shut the lamp off. In the darkness she was once again surrounded by, she pulled the red well stuffed comforter that the Doctor had found in a closet for her after she'd joined his tiny crew, up to her chin, and used it's sort warmth to remind herself that she was safe in her bed. Nevertheless no sooner had she closed her eyes, than she felt herself drifting off again into a terrible place that she refused to fall into. With a start she sat herself up in her bed with a rapidly pounding heartbeat that she could hear echoing through her eyes, and threw the covers off. She'd been scared before, but reading had given her something else to think about and she'd calmed down with relative ease. This time though, she felt terrified and knew she'd not be able to calm down so easily.

Her clock told her that in London it would be nearly three in the morning. She climbed out of her bed, still shaking from the horror of her still clearly remembered nightmare, and went to find a change of clothes in her dresser drawers. Standing moments later under the warm water of her bathroom shower, she soaped up her hair, and letting the water pour over her and down the drain, she tried to imagine that her shakiness and fight was like the water - down the drain and out of sight and mind. She tried to stop shaking as she replaced the cap on the shampoo bottle after early dropping it twice. She forced herself not to hear the horrible, powerfully loud voice replaying it's words in her ears. She tried even harder, to not see the anything that didn't really exist when she blinked her eyes. She leaped out of the shower faster than she'd ever done before, threw on a clean t-shirt over a striped long sleeve top, and pulled on a pair of blue jeans. With her hair still wet and after quickly putting her shoes on to enable her to walk easily over the grating that covered parts of the ship's floors, she hurried out of her room and into the hallway.

The lights had dimmed hours ago, as they did every night while the ship had one of more sleeping passengers on board. Hailey walked along the hall alone and jumpier than she'd been in years. She came to a place where two corridors intersected and found that the sound of her feet banging on the metal floor of the hall she was to cross sounded both far away, and very loud. She shook her head, trying to put her feelings of strangely uncharacteristic fearfulness into perspective. She scolded herself for being so childish, as she crept into the sitting room.

She nearly screamed out loud as the Doctor, sitting down in a chair near the door and writing on a sheet of paper, looked up, smiled and said a simple hello. She'd been looking for him, and yet his appearance had startled her so bad anyway. She could not help feeling even more miserable and silly. His eyes flew open in concern for her, as she lingered in the doorway, with her hand over her mouth, shaky and on the verge of tears.

"I'm very sorry," he said seriously. "I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't think I would."

"It wasn't your fault," Hailey said quietly, forcing a memory of her recent dream from her mind once again. "I... I just... I..."

"Have had any sleep tonight?" the Doctor asked her. Hailey stood frozen in the doorway, nodding her head slightly and trying not to let him see her acting in a way she could not help but think must be childish.

"I slept a little," she said quietly, thankful that she had gotten at least two hours of sleep before her harsh awakening. She'd needed the rest so much after a morning of studies and a day of running around in medieval Europe chasing after a shape shifting alien. The day had been so typical and even positive and exciting. They'd won their little battle for Earth easily, and it had been really been what they had come to refer to as all in a days work for the three of them. She'd seen the city of Paris long before it was what it was in her own time. She'd thought that the scene vaguely reminded of of a scene out of a children's storybook shed loved years before, and she'd smiled so brightly. Now she just stared at her friend in misery, feeling like a trembling fool.

"Hailey," the Doctor's voice as he said her name was serious and clearly so full of concern. "What's the matter?" He held his arms out to her and barely thinking about it, she hurried into the room and let him hug her.

"I had the worst nightmare ever!" she cried, feeling entirely immature and beyond ridiculous.

"Can you tell me about it?" the Doctor led her over to a chair, and then pulled another one over next to it to sit in himself.

"I don't even want to think about it," Hailey answered beginning to tremble again, though she'd stopped a moment before. her eyes were wide and full of fear and complete confusion as she forced herself to look at him for a second before her head dropped to her folded knees.

Seeing his young student in such a state, her head on her knees and her body shaking while she clearly fought back tears, the Doctor was certain that what had happened had been more than just a simple nightmare. He knew what her mind was capable of, though she still fought so hard to repress her gifts. This impossible young person, should not by the commonly excepted theories, have ever been able to exist at all. Obviously the fact that she clearly did exist proved so much about those theories very wrong. Ever the state of her mind was proving centuries of theorizing to be potentially incorrect. For many hundreds or even thousands of years Time Lord law had forbidden Gallifrey's people from even interacting socially with outsiders at all. Finally, in not so distant history, the council had loosened up on the matter of simple socialization a bit at a time until it reached a point where technically it would not have been considered a crime for a citizen to marry a human, as Hailey's father had eventually done. these laws had been passed initially however out of a fear of what possible mixed race children - if racial mixing was even possible at all, and that was another matter of uncertainty - could do to the collective mind of Time Lord society.

A child of mixed origins could never comprehend time and space in anywhere near it's fully capacity, or ever be capable to holding a universal wealth of information in her head - or at least that was always the commonly understood opinion of the matter. It had been long believed that in trying to, simply by her nature, take her place within the overall shared understanding of anything and everything known to the society, the child of an outsider at would best bring the entire link down considerably, and at worst become physically endangered. Hailey though was physically and mentally as strong as any Time Lord of her young age should be. She was several years behind others both due to her racial mix and her lack of past training, but she was catching up faster than should have been possible. In other ways though, also due to her being part human, she was actually ahead of where one her age should be. He knew that if he was actually able to do a good enough job with her education, and she was finally able to get past the fear that had so firmly taken hold of her mind, even partly human she could be one of as much power and skill as any could be.

Moving from his chair to kneel in front of hers, the Doctor placed a hand under his student's chin and tipped her head up so she looked him in the eyes. She almost refused to make eye contact, and he could so clearly see her emotions from the look she gave him. The shame at being terrified of something that could never hurt her, and the humiliation at finding herself trembling with fear at a bad dream as any small child might do, reflected as misery on her face.

"Don't laugh at me," she said so quietly he barely heard her speak. "I feel so stupid, but I really was scared of that dream!"

"Talk to me. I won't laugh at you."

"I don't want to talk about it. I just don't want to be all alone."

"I can't help if you won't talk to me," the Doctor said patiently. His mind was suddenly filled with a memory of centuries before. He recalled sitting in a near empty room, still a young child himself holding a tiny shaking girl in his arms and trying to help the much younger child calm herself after her own sudden moment of mental awakening. She'd called it a nightmare too, just like Hailey did now, but he'd survived all that not more than a few years before and reminded her that everyone went through it all. The girl, whose name he could not remember, and didn't think he'd ever learned in the first place, had been a fellow student in his days at the academy, and because she was in a younger class, he barely knew her. Yet he'd heard her crying and screaming in the night, and when anyone that should have helped, ignored her completely, he'd run to offer help the best way he could. He shook off the recollection, and looked again at Hailey's tear filled eyes. The look was so much the same as the one he was trying so hard to forget. The look was almost always so much the same every time he'd seen a child give it. And now, Hailey, though she was older, showed him that same look of terror and confusion and overwhelmed desperation, as she tried so hard to free herself from his attention. She was miserable and scared and embarrassed and wanting to move on to something else to distract her from what had happened. He knew all to well the need to repress it try to forget. But he knew just as well how much a mind needed to deal with that sort of thing in order to learn control of it. _ "Please," he said quietly and with complete seriousness. "I need to be able to help you. I think this could be something of great importance."_

"Okay," Hailey said, still so quiet. She sat still, with both of her arms wrapped around her knees and looking down toward the floor.

"I dreamed of waking up suddenly and I found myself in the middle of this huge endless dark space. It was so big and so lonely and so silent. I looked around and I found I could see in any direction at once, but there was nothing to see, only pitch blackness." Hailey shook again as she talked. It was so blatantly clear that whatever it was that she had seen, it had scared her horribly - perhaps worse than the Doctor had first thought. "It was so horrible, that feeling of being all by myself in the middle of nothing. Then I began to see. I'd thought that if I could only see something or hear anything it would be better, but it wasn't. That voice I've heard before, calling to me in my dreams was back again, but this time it was so loud. It was overwhelming and all around me. But it seemed as well to be in front of me. I realized then that any direction could be forwards and any direction could be backwards. The voice shouted that nothing had a beginning or an end. I could see lights appearing around me and they spun in every direction while I thought on some level that everyone was moving forwards. I was pulled along as the lights formed a tunnel and I was dragged toward it. The voice just shouted in my head for me to go to it and see it and experience it. I didn't want to. I didn't want to be there at all. I remembered that I should be in my bed, but I couldn't get back. I saw numbers everywhere, but none of them made any sense. The numbers went away and all around me I could see fast moving pictures. So many things I could barely tell what any of them were. I know that none of it made sense though. A lot of it was history, but it was mixed up and twisted. One image I so clearly recall was a photograph of Hitler as the leader of all of Europe. There was another of a global nuclear disaster and the end of the world. John F. Kennedy as the American president in 1976, and others that were just weird and not how things really happened. I just remember being so overwhelmed by the size and the speed and the impossible strangeness of it all. The space around me was so open... too open! I felt so small and so lost. I didn't want to go forward. I didn't want to see whose voice that was!"

Tears came to her eyes, and the Doctor held his crying and horrified student in his arms for a while. For several moments no one said a thing, and then, still holding her tightly, he urged her to continue. She stiffened a little, but slowly she began to speak again. "I was pulled forward into a fast spinning vortex, and I found I couldn't even scream. I couldn't do a thing, except struggle helplessly and hope whatever held me would let go. I started to to feel... like... I can't even think about this!"

"It's alright," the Doctor said calmly. "Anything that goes on in your own mind can never hurt you. I need to know though how far this went so I can help you."

"So this happens to other people?" Hailey's voice was broken by sniffling sobs.

"You wouldn't believe how common this is. Just keep talking to me. What did you start to feel?"

"There was more energy and force than I've ever known before. I know that it was creating those numbers and those spinning lines and the confused versions of events. It was... everything. Anything that could ever be. It told me that without speaking. Something was wrapping itself around me tighter and tighter and started to pull harder and harder. I was being pulled... away from myself. I thought I was dying. Finally I somehow woke up in my bed. I was so scared I read for awhile, not able to sleep again. When I did try to sleep later on, I started to see everything go so black so fast and I knew I'd end up there again in that horrible place." Her crying had slowed a little, but now she began to cry harder again. Her hands held onto the Doctor's jacket tightly, as though she didn't want to let go of him for fear of being dragged off into the darkness of nothing. He could recall so many times in his life on his planet, seeing and dealing with young ones who had so recently experienced things closely related to her recent experience. She, however, it seemed was taking it so much harder than anyone he'd known of before. His wandered to the matter of his students possible initiation that he still hoped she'd agree to. On Gallifrey, it was far from uncommon for the young students to run away in fright and confusion on their initiation nights. He'd accepted that Hailey would quite like run away herself, and he'd become certain he'd think the same of her either way. Running away had never been seen as a terrible thing even back home. The ones who didn't just tended to much later laugh at the ones who did, to an extent. Now though he was more convinced that she'd refuse to do anything at all.

She'd been so torn down, beaten, and broken by life. So much scared her now, though she wouldn't admit to that until it actually happened. Without any kind of childhood guidance in what her mind and awareness were supposed to be able to do, she had been thrown into it abruptly, while some part of her still thought that it was all bad and dangerous and impossible. He thought back to a time not long before, when she had so desperately wanted to leave and go home to her old life. She's blamed his sudden anger the need to leave,and he had believed that to be most of the reason. Now he thought there might have been much more to it than even she knew herself. Her mind and body were more than well equipped to handle her place in the universe, but was she emotionally capable enough? When she'd packed her bags to leave just a few weeks before, had she really been trying in the only way she subconsciously know how, to protect herself from having to do things that she was barely able to handle? He wondered if he was by chance thinking selfishly in wanting her to reach her full potential and hold a place as one of the last two Time Lords. He feared for the first time that he was trying in vain to wrongly force her to be something she could never be. He'd been so sure that she had enough within her to awaken, but now he forced himself the face the fact that it might not be quite enough at all. In his excitement at finding what he thought could have been another Time Lord, he'd forgotten to consider the fact that he may have simply found just a very special human.

"Something a little bit similar happened to me on the night you and Rose found me behind those warehouse buildings," Hailey was saying. Her words pulled him from his jumble of thoughts and he noticed that she'd actually stopped crying and was looking around nervously with tear stains on her face. She sat against the back her her chair, folded her knees in front of her again, and actually began to look more comfortable. "I've been thinking that that's how you found me. I remember I asked when I woke up, how you found me. Well I remember that I'd been dragged into a van a couple hours before against my will. Of course you know that part already, but there's more. Something I've never told anyone about. I was so scared, that I'd be beaten badly or probably even killed by one of those guys. They are all drunk and violent and they thought the whole thing was amusing and funny. Jeff was so unstable and all those idiots were so unpredictable. I was getting more and more frightened, and I couldn't figure out how to get myself out of that mess. There was no one else on the road to notice and do anything. Suddenly, it's as though some new part of my mind, that I've never felt or noticed before took control and began to shout silently into what I saw in front of my eyes as a black field of complete nothingness. There was something else, far beyond, through the darkness, and I could feel it's presence getting close and reaching out for me. it wasn;t more than a couple of seconds after, that I must have been thrown out into the junk pile behind the warehouse, but I'm not sure if I lost consciousness from the beating, out of fright at what I'd somehow done. I still don't know what I did." She looked at him, searching for understanding and sympathy. "Doctor, who that unseen presence in the blackness?"

"Nothing was going to hurt you," the Doctor said seriously. "Nothing could if it wanted to. That presence you talked about, was not a presence at all. Well nothing with a fully conscious stream of thought anyway." He saw that she was starting to calm down even more, and he continued on explaining. "That blackness was a way of perceiving an aspect of the time vortex itself, and all of possibility and anything that could ever be. It's not actually blackness though. Well at least it doesn't have to be. We all see it in different ways. Eventually you might even be able to decide for your self how you want to see it."

"Why was it pulling me in?" Hailey asked in a tiny and still scared voice.

"It wasn't really," the Doctor answered, with more matter of factness than he very quickly realized, he should have used. "You mind was trying to merge with it, and work with it in order to solve an urgent problem. In the case to experience tonight, there was nothing to solve, but your mind is obviously starting to look for it's connection to the time vortex."

"I... I... don't want to ever do that again."

"Oh but that's one of the basic abilities of the Time Lord mind. It sure scares most young students at first, but it's really not a bad thing at all, just who we are. It's unfortunate though that you had to discover that one on your own in a life or death situation, when your basic instincts acted to call help and try to save you. Ideally someone will learn to do that for the first time on purpose while working in a school class room with their teachers, or perhaps even earlier in life with one's parents."

"Can I avoid that happening again? I think twice is more than too many times for that to happen!"

"Oh no, don't wish to avoid ever doing that. When you learn to go further with it, you can get used to it and not be terrified."

Hailey looked up at the Doctor, as she slowly but politely removed herself from his light hold on her. She sat facing him again, in near the same way she'd started. "Does initiation relate to any of that idea of merging with time itself?"

The Doctor sat still and quiet for a moment contemplating the best way to answer her question. Eventually he settled on an answer. "Well it's never really been explained in this way, but it seems to me that that's actually the first time a student, normally a very young child, is pulled into a state of complete emotional and mental mergence with it."

"It's not as bad or weird as it sounds," he continued quickly when he saw his student's eyes grow wide again.

"No one ever knew, back in the academy, what would happen at all," he said, finishing his thought out loud as more of an answer to Hailey's questioning. "It was all left as a nearly a complete unknown to us ahead of time. All anyone ever knew is that we might not be the same after a certain night that we all knew was coming up at some unannounced time. The dates were varied year after year so no student could even relay on the dates on which a sibling's initiation had been. Each of us was taken from our room at the school one at time on a random night any time during a period of a few weeks or months, but with no real pattern to who went when. All we ever knew is that it would be in our second year sometime."

He'd never liked to think about any of that, even in his younger days. But assuming that hearing about his experience might help her in some big way, he boldly kept going. "In my initiation year, word had started to get around that students had started to be taken out at night. Of course every year that happened. After the first few, the students caught on and started to talk, passing the word along. Still though, no one knew who'd be next, or when we'd just be picked to go out to an unknown location. We knew which students had gone already. We could tell. But none of them ever really talked much about it, not for a long time afterwards. When the word started to go around the halls, that the high ranking teachers had started to grab students in the night, I lay awake every night for hours listening and wondering if it would be anyone near by that night, or even myself. For a week or so I didn't hear or notice anything at all, and by the middle of the night I'd fall asleep just fine. Many of us had the same trouble. There were so many tired little students in the classrooms for months."

"One night I was laying in my bed, after all my roommates had gotten to sleep. I suddenly heard a girl from down the hall screaming in fight and panic. She was a friend I used to talk to about schoolwork, because she was wonderful with numbers and I could never figure math problems out. I recognized her voice right away and I got scared. I'd never actually heard anyone from my wing of the dorms taken away at night, and I hadn't expected that when it finally did happen to one of us it would be _that _obvious or disturbing. She was crying so loud and so hard, asking to be given a bit more time to emotionally prepare herself. She didn't feel ready, that much was perfectly clear. Of course she was made to go with them anyway. I actually saw her the next day in class. She was perfectly fine. She just looked tired and still shaken up, but she came over and asked if I needed help with my work, like nothing had happened. Still, I slept even worse after that. The night I heard the door to my room open, I thought my hearts would both stop dead. It wasn't me though that had been picked. It was one of my roommates, and his reaction wasn't half as strong as that of the girl down the hall had been. He seemed actually pretty okay with it. Most likely he was just glad to have been chosen get it over with so he didn't have to worry about it any more. It was only a couple of days later that another roommate was taken from our room. He seemed to be missing in the morning, and then I saw by afternoon he'd not come to any classes either. We never did see him again, and when someone finally the headmaster if the boy was alright, all we were told is that he'd left the academy and that there'd been an unspecified accident."

"When were you finally chosen to go?" Hailey asked. She looked at him, nervous but caught up curiously in the story he was relaying. The little bit of strangely timed news about the boy had made her nervousness worse, but she was glad he was being honest.

"A week or so after, I think," the Doctor answered. "I'd heard nothing, even late into the night, and had fallen asleep, filled with relief at another night in which nothing had gone on. Soon after I went to sleep I was gently shaken awake again. As soon as I woke up, I knew my turn had come, and I panicked. The instructor that had come to wake me up and led me out of there, was nice about it and he handed me my warm jacket and shoes from the closet and waited patiently while I took longer than I should have to put them on, because I was shaking so much. He made sure he held his light out over the path where I could clearly make out my way safely in the dark. For a moment I started to really panic, after we got outside and onto a well hidden path I'd never seen before even in the daylight. I was overwhelmed with having no idea what was going to happen. He stepped walking and let me stand still on the grass for a few minutes to compose myself. It was obvious he was pretending he didn't see my tears, as I was trying so hard to hide them."

"What happened during the actual initiation?" Hailey questioned, needing to know, but terrified to hear the answer. She moved down to sit with him on the floor and reached her arms out, hoping the Doctor might hug her again as he explained. He did so, and then holding her tightly again after turning around, he spoke sadly, but very seriously.

"Well yours would be quite different due to very different circumstances, And thank goodness you will get to do it this way, instead of the typical way. Merging with the universe and time itself for the first time though, will still be a very strange experience to say the least. Your awareness will be pulled forward so fast, but your body will let you know in a very obvious way that it still exists here, cannot move and doesn't want to let the mind go. The mind will panic and spin and search for anything it can find as it tries to process something that is beyond all learned understanding. If you manage to stay with it at that pont, things will focus a bit and the blackness all around will begin take on form and dimension. You will begin to look for a sort of understanding and the universe will pass on it's knowledge. You might be dragged back a bit by the feelings within your body, which will have gone into it's awakened state as well. That's when you will gain the full physical capabilites of a Time Lord. This whole awakening state might actually hurt a little bit, but not for very long. You might also learn your name at that time."

"But I have a name already," Hailey said slowly and in confusion. "I know that Time Lords typically rename themselves once they learn their names, but my mother is a human and she wanted me to be Hailey."

"The Doctor laughed a little, despite the seriousness of their conversation. "Well you can of course use whatever name you want to use. You will just have another one as well as your given name."

"Can I have more time yet before I tell you if I want to do it or not? I don't know how much time I need to decide."

"No hurry at all. If you do decide to go through with it, you will always be at least slightly different. That's never something to be taken lightly. I know you'll tell me when and if you ever decide to."

Both were silent as they first got up from the sitting room floor and then they maintained a state of companionable silence as they made their way to the kitchen to think over making breakfast. Morning had arrived and they only to to wait for Rose to wake up and get ready to go, before they would be off on another day of running and adventure. Finally after several minutes of neither saying a thing as they waited for the third member of the crew Hailey said what was on her mind. "Doctor, if it's alright, I think I'd like to leave for this weekend. I'd like to make my way back to my old apartment and pick up a few more things, and go stay with a friend for a bit. I've not seen her in months and we've been friends forever. I guess I should run into the put as well and officially turn in my notice for work. Of course I've lost my job by now, even in Earth time I've been gone a week at least. Still though best to go in there and give them some reason for leaving."

The Doctor, though he'd been expecting something like this, felt horrible anyway. He had to admit he felt worse than he thought he would when he realized in the past few hours that such a thing may well happen. He hoped his sadness wouldn't show as he looked her in the eyes, knowing full well that the young lady had to be free to live her life as she felt she should and could. Still though he wished that she would stay.

"Of course," he said. I'll bring you back to Earth anytime. I can't cross any established time lines, that but then again of course you knew that. The closest we can get to the time we left, would be, let's see... Got it! it would be within a few hours after your last visit to your mother I believe."

"That sounds about right," Hailey said casually as she put several pieces of bread into the toaster ready to toast enough for the three of them. She was being so casual about the idea of leaving, the Doctor reflected, as he watched her putting a pot of coffee on to brew and reaching into a cupboard for a few cups. He wondered seriously if this was her minds away of dealing with things that had so quickly turned out to be just far enough beyond it, to have a negative effect. At least she wasn't trembling anymore and she looked to be happy and certainly over what her mind still wanted to thing as as a nightmare. He regretted being so honest about initiation and the academy. He never talked about such things with anyone, and suddenly he was forced to wonder why he'd decided it was a good idea to be so open with her when she was already so terrified.

"Please, just be sure you find time to say goodbye to Rose before you go," he said, without expressing any of his other thoughts to her. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, but he couldn't even bring himself to say that.

"Um... sure," Hailey said. She removed the hot slices of toast from the toaster and quickly put them onto a plate before she mildly burned her her fingers. She pulled the pan that contained eggs of the heat. "I was just going to have you let her know I took off, if I don't have a chance. But I can always find the time to let he know in person."

"You're one of her closest friends," the Doctor exclaimed. "You can't just leave without saying good bye to her." Hailey's casual attitude about leaving was one thing, but to see her so calmly brushing people off concerned him greatly. He wondered again what he;d been thinking to tell her all he had. He feared that though she was hiding it well, he'd done her so much damage. Much to his surprise, Hailey began to laugh, as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

"My god, you make it sound as though I'm leaving forever and never coming back."

The Doctor stared at her silently for a moment, and in that moment he dared to have hope. "Aren't you?"

"Nope." Hailey sat down it the kitchen table and waited for Rose to get up for breakfast. "When I said I want to take off for the weekend, I really meant for the weekend."

"I thought you were trying to make a polite get away. I thought I might have frightened you too badly. Whatever I did, I'm really sorry."

"You did scare me. You scared me half to death with your talk about the unspecified accident at the academy, and the very idea of merging with time itself. This whole thought of initiation terrifies the living daylights out of me. It always has. But you were only being honest, and I'm so grateful for that. Things are so different now, and I know that. I know that you'd never throw me into a situation you thought might be extremely dangerous."

"So what's the plan then?" the Doctor was asking as Rose joined then in the kitchen yawning and reaching for the coffee pot.

"I think I might leave tonight and meet up with you two again a coupe of days. You two can travel alone for a little while, and I can get a few things taken care of. Sunday night London Earth time, maybe you could come and pick me up again in the city?"

The Doctor, assured that she was simply going away for a few days and not running in terror from the life she'd come to love, as soon as things got scary, agreed easily with her proposal.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N; Okay the last chapter I posted was actually pretty angsty, which can certainly be interesting to write... but it's almost Christmas. So, this is just what we need for this time of year, a lighter hearted little chapter with a partly holiday theme thrown in just because I can. **

"Here we are," The doctor cried happily, as he made his way over to open the doors of his ship. "London. Earth!"

Hailey picked up her backpack from the floor against the far wall of the console room, and put the straps over her shoulders. The Doctor and Rose both walked with her outside. All three of them stood on the grass, looking around in surprise. They stood in a familiar well landscaped and comfortable courtyard, looking at a large brick building not far away past the walkways, and benches.

"The TARDIS brought us back to Belmont hospital," Hailey observed, stating the fact that the others could obviously see for themselves. "What's this all supposed to mean?"

It was than that she caught sight of her mother, sitting on a wooden bench near the hedge lined fence at the edge of the grounds, no more than ten meters from where the ship had landed. She was most thankfully all alone and considerably far from the main hospital or the couple of other smaller buildings on the grounds. Abigail, who had been sitting out there alone drawing intently on a sheet of white paper in a hard covered sketchbook, looked up at the sound of the engines. Her eyes opened wide in surprise at suddenly seeing a blue police box in the courtyard near where she sat.

"Mum," Hailey cried in surprise at seeing her. She felt strangely more excitement than she would have even a month before even thought possible at the idea of talking to her mother.

Abigail was clearly confused by the fact that her daughter seemed to have showed up very sudden in a small blue box. She shook her head once, blinked her eyes, and then looked again at the box, that sure enough was still there. Her eyes scanned the two others that had walked forward behind her daughter.

"These are my friends," Hailey explained. "The two I told you about, that I've been traveling with. The Doctor and Rose." She gestured toward each of them in turn as she said their names. She turned back the other way. "This is my mother."

"Maybe I really do belong in this nut house after all," Abigail Andrews exclaimed, her voice shaking slightly. "Did that box just appear right out of nowhere, or have I started to hallucinate? Nice to meet you by the way. Just call me Abigail."

"It didn't come from nowhere Mum," Hailey said, with a smile. "It came from within the time vortex, and simply materialized back in third dimensional real time reality !"

"Is this the Doctor's TARDIS then?" Abigail questioned, beginning to understand. She walked slowly toward the box to get a better look at it. "Why a police box though? Of course, if I recall it all correctly it should be able to look like almost anything within reason. But a police box is awfully out of date. Doesn't that defeat some of the purpose of a disguise"

"Something jammed back in the sixties," The Doctor explained. He laughed slightly. "I could probably fix it, but why? I like the blue police box appearance. So, you are quite familiar with the workings of a TARDIS then?"

Hailey's mother said nothing in response. She only looked up to the sky, staring off into space with a sad and dreamy look in her eyes. It was obvious to the three traveling companions, that even after so many years, she still missed her long dead husband from a place so far away. After a few seemingly endless seconds of staring forlornly at the sky, lost in thoughts and memories of the past, she gave another look toward the impossible blue box, and her eyes grew wider with worries.

"You three have all got to go," she said quickly. "We can't have something just kind of suddenly appear here on the lawn of a hospital. Here it would be noticed for sure by so many people, and the staff would look for any number of ways to explain it. When they can't figure it out, and the police tell them it's not their box either, people will be concerned and panic."

"It's never caused a panic before," the Doctor answered, unconcerned. "People most often barely notice it, and those that do think little of it."

"There are so many people here that suffer from all kinds of paranoia." Abigail insisted urgently. "The last thing we need is to risk a situation. What would happen, if some other patient, extremely paranoid about alien invasions and the end of the world were to notice such a thing that was not here before? People talk of course all the time. They talk to each other and rumors get going so fast through the halls."

"Come inside for a moment," the Doctor said quickly, realizing the importance she felt in getting out of there. He reached out, took Abigail by the hand and led her onboard behind the others. The woman's eyes showed a few greatly differing, mixed emotions. She showed clearly, everything from amazement to concern, and a few somewhere between.

"It's..." she began to say, and then stopped, thinking intently of the right words to use next.

The Doctor expected that she would say it was bigger on the inside. Everyone said that, and it had quite clearly become the well anticipated reaction of visitors to the ship. Instead however, she only finished her statement with, "very different from the one I remember."

She reached over to the nearest of the curving support beams, not far from her at all, and brushed her hand against it gently as though feeling the texture of the structure. She smiled, and walked over to the next of the beams, where she went on to brush her hand along the surface of that one too. Rose looked clearly puzzled by this woman's slightly odd behavior, and Hailey busy taking off her pack and then storing it under the captains chair, didn't even notice at all. The Doctor however was both surprised and greatly pleased to see Abigail's interaction with his ship. She obviously knew that the TARDIS was technically very much alive, and though she was going about it in a way he'd never seen before, she was clearly trying to say hello to it, and communicate her harmless intentions.

"Are you sure you want an institutional patient onboard your ship," she asked the Doctor, as he set about working the controls again quickly, sending them back into the time vortex and dematerializing his ship. "Most people fear us and say that any of us might be dangerous."

"I don't think you're dangerous," the Doctor answered. "You look perfectly safe, not to mention sane, to me."

"Thanks for believing I'm a sane person," Abigail said. "Goodness knows, I can't convince those so called professionals at the hospital of that fact and I've been there for at least sixteen years!"

"Why are you in a mental hospital anyway?" Rose asked suddenly. "And why, after all those years can't you just be let out again?" As soon as she'd said it, she worried she'd stepped out of line and offended someone, but Abigail only looked thoughtful, as though trying to think of the best way to answer honestly.

"That incompetent fool of a head physiatrist refuses to allow my discharge from the hospital. So did the last moron that held that position. They think that I was so grief stricken by the disappearance of my husband, that my mind became delusional in order to deal with it the only way it could. The common theory is that I somehow became convinced of the whole story of the Time Lords and their distant home world because I was in a very emotionally fragile state and would have hung onto anything to be able to better understand why he left. Anyway the guy that used to hold the head physiatrist position was sure that James, my late husband, was murdered in front of me and that my mind still could not recall the blocked memories of it. The new guy has a very different theory on the matter. He says that if my mind has not overcome such a mental block in all that time, then that's because there was no traumatic murder at all. He says my husband probably just packed up and left while I wasn't home, and never came back. He thinks he might have been having an affair or something and went off to spend his life with some other woman."

"That seems like a strange and primitive reason to keep someone in an institution," the Doctor remarked. "You'd think that by this day and age..." he stopped thinking before he even completed his thought. Feeling less than impressed with the way this woman he'd just met but saw as perfectly reasonable and sane was treated, he let his ship drift through the vortex as it wished and stepped back from the controls.

"Would you like to see my room?" Hailey asked her mother. It seemed like a silly thing to ask her, but she could only assume that she would be curious about another small aspect of her daughter's life.

"Sure I would," Abigail answered and Hailey led her out through a door that appeared in the wall when she stepped in front of it.

The two of them walked in silence through the hallway and across a place where it crossed another hall leading to yet more rooms in the impossible ship. Hailey opened a door near the end of hall, by turning a standard doorknob. She led her mother into the simple but pleasant room, with the metal framed bed against the far wall covered with a red blanket, the white writing desk covered in a scattered mess of books and papers near the door, and the dresser against another wall with her art supplies stored neatly on top in a plastic crate. There were various pictures and posters hung on the room's walls, an analog clock on the nightstand along with a book on particle physics and a handful of small British change. A brightly colors hooded sweater was thrown over the back of the desk chair in an empty out of the way corner, Hailey's laptop computer lay plugged into an outlet charging up the battery.

"It looks so normal in here," Abigail remarked. She turned the chair away from the desk and sat on it.

Hailey laughed slightly and flopped down into a sitting position on her bed. "Yeah. Why wouldn't it?"

"No reason really. I just... well it seems strange to me still even after knowing your father, that the inside of such a machine can just look like any other common home."

"The parts that are used often do. There are rooms and hallways I've seen in here that look, well much less lived in I suppose. So many are just empty rooms that have never even been painted or carpeted."

"If my memories of anything I've ever learned are right, then this ship must be so huge inside. Much bigger than we can even imagine."

"Oh yes," Hailey said wistfully. Sometimes I just wander through the halls and try to find the end. It seems to go on forever. But of course we know that's impossible. It can't possibly be infinite, only very very big."

"TARDIS Rooms always did look slightly strange to me for some reason I cannot place." Abigail moved her eyes once again around the room, trying to find a detail out of place, that might explain her insight. "Your father's was the same way. It looked so normal inside and so cozy and like it could be lived in just fine, but always something a bit off."

"No windows," Hailey said simply. "Exactly the kind of thing that a person might not think to pay much attention to when a room has one, but lack of them can throw you off a bit."

"Of course. Well don't I feel positively dense now. So many years and I never did catch onto something so plainly obvious."

"You wouldn't happen to have any photo albums would you?" Hailey asked boldly, changing the subject. "I know you might not, because you live in a hospital, and probably can't have many personal items. If you do have one though, and you don't mind showing me, I've been looking for photos from way back before I was born."

"I have an album," Abigail answered. "Of course you can look at it one day. Come and visit soon, and I'll show you photographs. You can borrow it if you'd like, so you can make copies of whatever pictures you want."

"Thank you."

"Next time you stop in, I'll get permission to sign out for few hours again. I'd love to show you some of the shops in the village. It's almost Christmas. The place looks so lovely this time of year, most of the shops are open late, and there are lights everywhere. I'd love to spend more time with you sometime soon."

"How about today?" Hailey said with a bright smile on her face. She explained how the TARDIS had simply landed her there when she meant to get off in London and take care of her various business. She wondered out loud why the ship would have done that, but also mused that she could always get off in the village and take a train into the city that evening, in more than enough time than she needed.

~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~

"What time does the last train out leave this evening?" Abigail asked and she and Hailey sat in a cafe on a corner under a brightly lit Christmas tree and the string of bells that hung from the window next to their table. Outside a man in a red holiday hat, stood waving smiling and ringing a little brass bell, asking for donations to some charity organization.

"Not until seven. So a few hours yet. Are you sure you won't get into trouble for being out this long?"

"No. When I talked to the hospital nurse earlier I told her I'm spending the day with my daughter until she catches her train. She said that was alright. So... photos then?"

"Oh, yes of course!" Hailey got up from her seat in the cafe booth and taking her drink and her food with her, went to sit on the opposite bench with her mother and look at the pictures. Abigail took a little white album from the canvas bag she carried with her and opened it to the first page. Hailey found herself looking at a photograph of a woman who was quite clearly her much younger mother, wearing a lovely green knee length loosely flowing dress and a pair of black stiletto heels. Her hair was tied up with pieces hanging loose and a fabric flower pinned on one side. She stood beside a youngish looking man with wavy dark hair, wearing a simple grey suit and a ridiculous Christmas printed tie. She started in fascination at the photo. She knew that man. She'd seen him so many times whenever she took the time to remember.

"This one was taken in 1989, on New Years eve," Abigail said. "I decided to plan a party that year. Not too many people came, but that's okay. We had fun anyway, and because I had such a small apartment, It was good to have few guests. I have no idea why your father was waring that silly tie. He didn't even know that when people give you such a gift, you don't normally actually wear it to a party. He didn't know much about human customs back then. I don't think he knew how silly it looked." She burst out laughing, as she tried to sip her drink.

"He looks just like I remember him," Hailey said quietly.

"You can remember your dad? You were so little when he left, no more than two years old. I didn't think you'd remember him at all."

"I have very few memories, but I do recall a bit. I remember the way he used to throw me up into the air and catch me, and how I'd laugh so hard, but you'd panic every time. I remember we lived in a little two story house on a quite road near the top of a hill. I barely remember anything about the house other than that it had a blue carpet in the living room, and the Dad used to sit with me on the stairs and read me stories to me in a foreign language."

"I think he was using his own, from his home world," again Abigail laughed at a long ago memory. "I told him you couldn't understand a word he was saying and of course I most certainly couldn't either. One night, he just shrugged his shoulders at me gave such a look of innocence and asked why you can't be raised to speak and understand both languages. Yeah, I'm sure that would have gone over so well with the board of education in a few years - a child that speaks an alien language. The whole lot of us would have been thought of as mad."

She turned the pages of her photo album, clearly looking for a specific picture. Finally she found it, and pointed happily toward the book. In that photograph, the same man from from the other picture and from her memories, stood on the grass in a park near a tree holding a baby girl in a tiny pink dress.

"Is that me as a little baby?" Hailey asked, realizing that she'd never actually seen any baby pictures of herself at any time in her life.

"Yeah. Oh wow, I can't believe now that you were ever really that small. You were such a beautiful baby though."

Hailey gave a little laugh. "Yeah, but everyone thinks their baby is the most beautiful one."

"No, but you were. Your eyes were open far more than it seemed those of most others your age were. You always noticed things, and had this look of wide eyed wonder about you so often. By six months old, while of course you still didn't talk or anything, I was so sure you could actually understand a lot of what anyone was saying. You hardly ever seemed to cry, only when you were hungry or in pain or scared mostly, and you were always smiling and laughing. Friends of mine used to say that if all babies were as happy and easy going and smart as mine, they hoped to have ten children one day. You started to walk by eleven months old though and then, while you were still just as happy and still always smiling, it seemed that nothing was beyond your reach, and everything ended up in two chubby little hands. You started climbing into things by a year and a half old, too. Then we were really in for it."

They spent the next half an hour looking at old photographs, laughing and chatting as they finished their supper. Abigail gave Hailey the book to take with her, and she promised to bring it back the next time she visited. They walked through the village square after the sun had set, and the lights strung from every tree and storefront door and window, lit the street. There was no snow, but there was a light frost in some places.

"Mum," Hailey said more forcefully than she had intended, as the two wandered out of bookstore, and back out onto the nearly quiet sidewalk. "I need advice on something very important that few people would ever understand."

"What is it?" Abigail sounded slightly alarmed at her daughter's words, but at the same time boosted in confidence as a mother, by finding her child asking her of all people for important advice.

Hailey looked around in all directions up and down the street to be sure that no one was nearby. They were in a sleepy village in the English countryside, and though it was still only early in the evening, the streets were quiet. Seeing no one, she spoke up. "Had Dad ever mentioned anything at all to you about Time Lord initiation?"

Abigail stood for a minute thinking carefully and trying to remember. "Yes, I do believe he did a couple of times. He could never discuss it with me entirely, for whatever reason. I think that somehow it was just impossible for him to put it into words properly, in a way I would understand. The things he did say though, it never sounded like an altogether bad experience. He said once that he'd been among the students that were excitedly waiting for their initiation nights, though just as many of them were dreading it. He said that no one was ever quite the same afterward, but that most became something a little better than they'd once been. You've read about all that by now then I'd assume."

"I read what little was written anywhere I could find, after the Doctor told me I am ready for my own initiation," Hailey said. "Mine will not be like any others were in the old days, and I actually have a choice in the matter. I don't have to do it of course, but I have no idea what my choice will be."

"This is all so fast, it's amazing to hear," Abigail answered. "I excepted when you were born, that you would grow up to be very different from other children, and even more shocking, you would be different from me. Your father told me that he was so sure you'd be far beyond me in terms of intelligence by the age of seven. I so often wish I'd gotten to see for myself if he was right, but knowing you as I do now, I think he must have been. He always told me I was by no means stupid, just... human. Anyway, I think he'd be so happy and proud now to see that you are so close to taking a place in the universe that he always knew you should be well entitled to."

"But what would you think, Mum? How would you feel about me taking a true place as one of the last Time Lords in existence? I've finally gotten to really know you pretty well and I actually do care what you think of the path my life could take. I'd have to assume you like having a daughter whose basically as human as you are."

"I knew I'd never be the mother of a perfectly human child. How could I think I'd be the mother of a human, when I found myself pregnant with the child of a Time Lord. Our races are not so different at all. A typical person could never even tell the difference. In any case, if things had gone differently, you might have done all that anyway. You have to do what you think is right. I'd be just as happy for you either way."

"But I still think of myself as human," Hailey answered, still confused. Perhaps even more so than she'd been before. "I love learning and now I'm enjoying being able to see so much as well. But I'll always think of Earth as home, and humanity as my family and friends."

"Your father loved the Earth too. This planet, doesn't have to be only for the humans, he said once. This planet became his home,and he thought of it as such, while aware as well that he had a place elsewhere out there. What are the Doctor's views on life on Earth?"

"He loves this planet too. With Gallifrey destroyed, he's pretty much a wanderer without a home. But Earth is the closest he seems to have to someplace to go. There are so many planets out there, but this one is clearly his favorite one."

"You see now what I mean then?"

"Actually that makes a lot of sense," Hailey said smiling. They slowly walked toward the train station at the edge of the small village.

"How'd you and Dad meet?" Hailey questioned as the two of them walked along the quiet sidewalk, under the glow of holiday lights hung in house windows and on fence posts. A man, outside, standing on a low ladder, hanging decorations on the front of a garage, waved at them. Both waved politely and cheerfully back. "What's the date anyway? I know it's close to Christmas, but how close?"

"It's the eighteenth of December," Abigail said. She looked at her daughter with a bright smile on her face, and kept walking quickly in the cool evening air. She hurried across an empty street. "Your father and I... well that's a story and a half. I could tell anyone else and probably never see another hope of ever getting out of Belmont after that. But you're different. You can relate."

Hailey laughed, and then raised her eyebrows. "Why, what happened?"

"I was driving along the highway late one night, and I saw this man - your dad - a stranger at the time, walking along the edge of the road, next to the driving lane. It was so late and this was on a quiet secondary highway. No one else was around, but I figured someone should stop and offer the man help, so I pulled over."

"He came over when I stopped the car, but as soon as I asked if there's anything I could do to help, he said that unless I could help him with repairs to a multidimensional, seventh generation advanced mode time engine, then probably not. First I thought he was crazy. Then I thought he was drunk! I hoped he just simply just kidding around, so I asked him what had happened. He told with with complete and utter seriousness that he needed to fix his time ship. Apparently it had landed on Earth of it's own accord and then just broke down."

"Did you believe it?" Hailey asked, in amazement.

"Nope. I still thought he might have been crazy or drunk, and by that time I'd also started to wonder if he'd been inhaling some fumes he shouldn't have been. He struck me though as someone who was completely harmless, and I still figured he could have just been joking around thinking he whole thing was quite perfectly funny. I was heading back to the city, so I offered him a ride. He got in the car and by the time we got into London twenty minutes later we were having a good time listening to music. He knew nothing at all about any of the stuff they played and the radio and he was so amused by it for some reason. He came to my flat the next day, and asked if I'd drive him back out of town and try to help him fix his ship. no idea why agreed and we got into my car. It was reckless, it was potentially very stupid, and if my mother had found out, she'd have shot me for picking him up in the first place. But I knew I could trust him somehow. We got back out of town to some big open field, and it seems he trusted me as much as I did him. He showed me his time ship. It looked at first just like a run down old tool shed on some farmers property. I remember when I first walked inside I said..."

"It's bigger on the inside?" Hailey guessed, her face lit up with happy laughter.

"Exactly," Abigail answered as they ran inside the small railroad station. "See I knew you;d understand and relate to all this, better than anyone else. You've been there, you've lived it. You're living it now."

Abigail waited on a bench near the doors while Hailey hurried to the ticket counter and purchased a ticket to London. By the time her daughter had come back, she held a small package that she'd pulled out of it's place hidden within her canvas bag.

"Before you go, I have a Christmas present to give you," she said, handing her daughter the small nicely wrapped box.

"Mum, you didn't have to give me anything..." Hailey protested, taking the package uncertainly.

"You were twenty-one months old the last time I ever got to give you a Christmas present. I've waited for years for a another holiday I might actually be able to give you one. Anyways, holidays are so confusing when you travel through time and space, so be sure to open it on the train on your way back."


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N; Okay this chapter in some places is a little too silly, and I know that. As much as I love to write for this fandom, I can't do the adventure part of it very well it seems. I'm better with the emotional stuff that's what I prefer to write a lot of the time. In any case, here's another kind of an adventure-ish chapter. **

The evening train rattled along through the English countryside, far more crowded than Hailey would have expected for that later hour, in the middle of a week. She was sure it was Wednesday, but had to stop and actually think about it for a moment in order to be certain. Of course it was busier, she reminded herself. The railways and roads were always busier close to the holidays. She sat still in the seat for a couple of minutes reflecting with mixed feelings on how she would have to once again get used to the idea of dates moving in a correct order, and how the passing of dates and seasons could be marked in part by things like the number of people on a passenger train.

She carefully removed the bright red wrapping paper from the small gift her mother had given to her before she boarded, insisting she open it on train. Inside she found a small box, which she opened to find a small silver heart shaped locket. She very carefully removed it from the box, and opened the tiny picture frame. Inside she found a tiny version of a photograph she'd seen just that day in her mother's album - a photo of her parents so many years before, standing in under a tree behind the small house the family had lived in. Hailey was in the picture too, as a very small girl barely a year old, in her father's arms in another of her lovely little dresses, and reaching with great determination for the sleeve of her mother's blouse. She stared in amazement at the gift for a couple of moments, and then before she closed the locket again, her eyes went to the other side of the open frame.

_Always be you, Always be wonderful - Love forever, Mum. _was engraved into the shining silver. She smiled even as a tear appeared in the corner of her eye. Finally she put the locket back into it's box and placed it safely into her pack, not wanting to wear it, for fear of losing it. She took out a rock music magazine and opened it, leaning back on the seat to read.

The train stopped in a small town not more than a few kilometers past the village she'd just left. She saw a few people climb on board and after a quick look around the train car, she moved her backpack from the seat next her, knowing she'd likely have to share the seat from there to London.

It was an elderly lady who sat down next to her in the empty seat recently occupied by her pack. Hailey stuffed the backpack in front her seat after holding it in her lap for a moment and removing a couple of items she knew she'd want. The older lady, with with her white hair neatly curled and wearing a fur coat, sat down and looked at Hailey carefully. She stared at her brightly colored hair, with clear shock and disbelief before her eyes traveled down to the black tights showing through the ripped knees of her jeans, and her runners with the rainbow laces. The old lady finally just gave a sound of clear disapproval of her seatmate's appearance, and began unbuttoning her fur coat.

The well dressed lady looked at magazine in Hailey's lap, open to a picture of the heavily tattooed lead singer of a popular Swedish rock band, and an article about his new recording project. Her eyes narrowed in disgust and she stared sternly at Hailey, who looked up with a questioning look and closed the magazine.

"What kind of subject matter is that for a young lady?" The older lady demanded.

"Nothing wrong with it," Hailey replied dismissively, in the hope of being left alone by this clearly unpleasant fellow passenger. "It's just a music magazine."

"I'd hardly refer to rock and roll as music," the older lady countered. "I raised three daughters, all of them nice and proper young ladies. All three of my lovely girls played instruments and I raised them on classical music and things of culture."

"Well classical is just as valid of a musical genre," Hailey agreed. "I like to listen to some classical while I'm studying."

"You study? Hard to imagine some attention seeking anti-society girl like yourself studying anything but how to spray paint the side of a building."

"Now that's hardly a fair comment. That's a nasty and inaccurate stereotype and surely you know that."

"If one of my grandchildren ever spoke to me the way you are, they'd get a good slap."

"So, punish someone for speaking the truth then? Yeah that does so often seem to be the way of the world. Don't like what somebody else has to say, they get hit." Hailey was growing annoyed, and it showed.

"Where are your parents?" The elderly passenger demanded, frowning.

"Well that's a bit personal, don't you think?"

The older lady only muttered a little under her breath. She took her knitting needles and a big ball of blue yarn from the bag at her feet, and began knitting. Hailey opened her music magazine again and continued her reading. She'd known when she packed her bag for her short respite from her life of adventuring in time, that she could not bring any of the academy textbooks with her to continue studying while she was away. If such a thing were to somehow be misplaced on Earth who knew what might happen. Of course no one would be able to read the language, but it was more than possible that one day someone would interpret it. Humanity wasn't ready to know the things the books contained at that point, and she knew that. At any rate, aside from all that, she still needed the TARDIS to translate for her to an extent. She was glad of the break from her studies in any case. She'd been thinking so much over the past many months in terms and time and space and alternate possibilities along infinite time lines. She'd been learning and experiencing things in ways that no human ever could, and she had to admit she was glad for a little time to just be human.

Hailey looked around the train car taking everything in. Near the back, a young mother spoon fed a toddler from a plastic container, while an older child played with a hand held game in the seat next to her. An old man sat a few rows in front of them, reading a London news paper. A young couple, the young woman quite visibly pregnant, and both of them smiling, sat talking about Christmas at someone's aunt's house. A young man sat in a seat with his feet resting in the back of the one in front of him, with headphones over his ears and his eyes closed. Next to him, a man in a business suit used a laptop computer.

It was the group in the very back of the car, in the last row of seats, that caught Hailey's attention. Four almost identical looking men, all with very short and straight blond hair, and all dressed in loose green coveralls, sat in the seats looking at each other and barely moving. Finally the man at the end of the row, took a quick look around the train car then made a strange hand signal to the others. His companions all sent back another single at the exact same moment, and Hailey was for certain that at that moment two of them pressed buttons on devices strapped onto their wrists.

Hailey was sitting in about the middle of the car and facing backward. She had a perfectly reasonably view of the man, and she stealthily observed them, while pretending to go on reading. Next to her the old lady, as completely unaware as it seemed every other passenger was of anything potentially odd, continued to knit quickly.

"I'm making a blanket," the elderly woman said, appearently having decided to attempt at least somewhat civil conversation with her young seatmate. "My granddaughter is expecting her first baby in the spring and she just found out last week it's a boy. She called me right away and told me the news."

"Congratulations to your family," Hailey said, her attention moving back and forth between the lady and the group of men and in the back. "Your first great grandchild?"

"Yes. He'll be the first one. His Mum is only twenty- two years old. I told her I think she should give the baby up, but my daughter has told her that she and her new husband should keep their child, like they both want to. I just cannot believe this whole mess either sometimes. My own oldest daughter told me just a few months back, over the telephone to mind my own business and stay out of her daughter's life unless my granddaughter herself comes to me for advice. Well I certainly don't want to drive anyone away. I've never wanted that, even though a few of the grandchildren are annoyed about something or another now. So I ended up doing what I suppose is the only right thing I can do now. I called and left a message on her voice mail, telling her I'd happily support her decision to become a mother. So in any case, I'm knitting a nice warm blanket for the little one. No idea at all why I'd be telling you about about all this sort of thing. I don't suppose you know much about knitting or babies."

"Not much about either, no," Hailey answered, somewhat distracted. The lady went on rambling about her family life while Hailey, only half paying attention, continued to keep an eye on the men at the back of the train. Two of them had gotten up from their seats and were very slowly making their along the walkway that ran along the center of the car. She looked one of the two standing men up and down, still unable to shake the feeling that something was going on. With a slight roll of her eyes, as she watched the scene slowly unfolding, she reflected that that would be just her luck. She had no trouble at all with the constant chaos she found herself running into while traveling on board the TARDIS; but now she was back on Earth, back to her old human life for a short while, and she had been glad of the break.

She shook her head slightly and tried to shake off the feeling that anything was wrong at all. This was after all, a busy train in a the middle of the holiday rush, traveling at that moment through the quiet English countryside. She asked herself what could possible go wrong. Then, after settling down to read again, she reminded herself that if after traveling as long as she had with the Doctor, she still thought such a situation would always be free of trouble, she must not have being paying attention to anything he told her. Always be vigilant, he'd said so often. Notice everything. So she took notice again.

"Young lady, stop that," demanded the woman sitting next to her. Hailey looked at her with a quizzical expression on her face, as the lady continued on. "Don't you stare at those young men. A proper young woman will keep her eyes to herself and make eye contact only when conversing."

"I'm hardly what you'd likely call a 'proper lady,' Hailey said in hushed tones. She put her fingers out to make air quotes around the words proper and lady. "And keep your voice down for a minute."

"Don't you take that tone with me. Are your parents meeting you at the station in London? I think I'd enjoy a little word with them. I'd hope they plan to collect you anyway. Who lets a fifteen year old child wander through a city unaccompanied?"

"I'm older than I look. And anyway most parents would within reason."

Hailey observed the passengers again. The young mother finished feeding the toddler and he started to doze, laying over the seat with his head in his mother's lap. The business man put away the laptop and pulled a mobile phone out of his briefcase. The pregnant lady sat with her head resting on the back of her seat, while her husband ate a sandwich. She shook her head politely when he offered her a bite. The teenager with the headphones on his ears had taken the headphones off, and was talking with the old man holding the newspaper. From the sound of it, they were intently discussing the government's plans to build a new highway the following year, and how it would put several farmers off their land and out of their homes.

Her eyes traveled back to the four strange men in coveralls. Their eyes, she saw upon closer attention, were red. Aside from their oddly colored eyes though, their faces appeared typical of anyone else, aside from all four being nearly exactly the same. Their bluish grey coveralls were zipped right to the top, and it was obvious that each had something hidden within the front pockets. Around each of their right wrists there was a complex black device on a simple strap. Each was wearing some type of kneepads, and a pair of heavy black combat boots. She looked then from the feet back up to the head again, sure that she was missing something. She looked at another of them in the same way, and then wondered if perhaps all she'd missed was the eyes.

Red eyes have little significance on their own, she reminded herself. Her logical mind told her that they were a group of harmless holiday travelers, probably brothers, on their way to spend the holidays with their parents. She reasoned that the probably owned and ran an automotive shop together, and had ran to catch the train directly after closing their garage, and still wearing their work coveralls. Still though, she could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Hailey stood to leave her seat, intending to casually move closer to the men and perhaps go and speak to them calmly. She laughed slightly to herself about how often it seemed that trouble was following her since she'd met the Doctor. She wondered if that was an inconvenience that many people he knew faced. And why was she still so sure those en were up to something? She decided she'd simply go and speak to them a little, perhaps ask them for directions from the train station, to somewhere in London, just to try to settle her mind about them. She began to notice a very faint and almost inaudible buzzing sound, and she looked around again. Everything was just how it had been seconds before.

"Young lady, sit down," said the woman in the seat next to her. She set down her knitting sand gently taken Hailey's arm to pull her down to the seat. Hailey had to admit her surprise at how strong this considerably small old lady was. But still she did not sit.

She carefully tried to make her way past the lady and into the isle, without stepping on her foot, or tripping. The old lady put her feet out in front of her to block her passage. Hailey tried to step over and lady grabbed her arm again, this time somewhat roughly forcing her back into her seat.

"Young lady, I said sit down. You don't need to be walking all over the train getting into trouble."

"Oh, like it's a crime to walk around on a passenger train," Hailey countered, still trying to get out of her seat. "I have to get out."

"You can get out when we get to London. That's only a half hour from now."

Hailey finally just gave up and sat back down. The lady took up her knitting again, a pile of wool all over her lap and the seat.

Hailey's eyes moved back to the men, and in that moment the realization hit her forcefully. The buzzing sound she could still hear if she concentrated on it, was coming from the very back of the car. She looked to see what one of all of them might have in their hands, and it was then it occurred to her that she'd never actually seen their hands before. Several glances up and down over each of the men and she;d only seen their wrists, never their hands. She was sure the color must have paled in her face as she caught on to what she was witnessing. She'd seen this sort of thing before, but only once, and that time it had been while the Doctor was there to point it out and remind her how to see past it.

She turned her head a bit, and looked sideways trying to catch their hands in the corner of her field of vision, forcing herself to look exactly that way when her mind told her to look in the other direction. She slowly stood again and finally made out the entire imagine of one of the men, hands and all. He was holding a large shiny metal object that somewhat resembled a shotgun but clearly was not. The long rounding front was attached firmly to a larger curving piece he used to hold into his weapon. Underneath, one finger was pressed against the trigger, and on the top, and on the side, she noticed a small rounded dial used to control settings. She glanced to the left and now it was easy to see the identical weapons in the hands of each of the men.

Realizing now why no one else had seen anything as odd in any way, she felt a mix of pride in herself at being able to get so far on her own, and terror at what might happen if those four men, quite obviously using some sort of alien technology, were to open fire on a train, Hailey once again stumbled to get out of her seat.

"Sit down this instant," the old lady said, this time much louder, and of course completely oblivious to anything unusual. Her loud demand unfortunately attracted the attention of one of the men Hailey had been keeping an eye on. Within seconds all four had their penetrating gazes fixed on the young woman. One began to advance slowly along the isle of the train car, closely followed by the others. All four were pointing their guns right ahead and with the effect of her perception filter broken from Hailey's point of view, she could see clearly that they had their fingers poised on the triggers ready to fire at any time. No one else had yet seen a thing wrong, even as the four moved together through the car. All the others on board would have seen, through the full effects of the filter, was that all four of the young men had gotten up to walk elsewhere on board. They would not have thought a thing of their red eyes, and would not have noticed their hands at all yet not thought it odd to not notice. Most would simply assume they were all getting up to stretch their legs or find a a different set of seats, or that they must have noticed someone on board that they knew and went to wish them a happy holidays.

Hailey thought fast and decided that though she had no plan at all in mind, she had best think on her feet, making it up as she went along, before things turned bad. She knew of course that things may well get serious with or without her involving herself in them, but she knew too that she could not just sit by and not even try.

"Excuse me," she said to the elderly woman in the seat net to her. The lady had been trouble of course from the start, and things were still no different. She simply refused to move,and pointed at Hailey's seat clearly presuming to force her to sit back down again.

"Move it Grandma!" Hailey finally snapped urgently. She was beyond a point of logically being able to remain concerned with politeness, and when her seatmate still did not turn to the side to let her out, she simply jumped over the back of the seat, carefully avoiding the feet and knees of the teenager with the headphones on, and stepped into the isle. The young man, very likely having heard whole situation in front of him for the past ten minutes, laughed and looked back at the old man who shook his head.

"Hi," Hailey said to the four strange men, stepping right out in front of them. "I don't know what goes on on your own planet, but here on Earth, it's very illegal to bring firearms onto a commuter train. And waving them around is certainly a problem." The man in the lead stopped in his tracks and for a moment he and the others just looked at each other, making the occasional hand signal.

"Ummm... I don't think they actually have any weapons," the young man with the headphones said, clearly confused, and thinking that Hailey was the one to keep an eye on.

Hailey slid into the empty seat next to him, leaned over and whispered to him, "Oh? And how can you be so sure?"

"Well they're not exactly brandishing guns or knives for everyone to see," the young man replied, in a whisper of his own.

"Oh?" Hailey asked again. "So what are they holding for everyone to see?"

"They're not holding anything," came the suddenly uncertain reply. "Or... no... they have their hands in their pockets. No, I think they're... Why can't I be sure what's in their hands?"

"Because they don't want us to know," Hailey answered.

She left the seat of the now baffled young man, and stood in the isle thinking while the men continued to communicate among themselves. They were letting her look ridiculous, she knew. They were waiting until she made a fool of herself and was forced to back down, before they did whatever it was that they were planning. But, Hailey had to question, exactly what was it they were planning to do?

She looked around the train car trying to see it in a way she might not have before. She'd taken notice of the people but not the decor and the walls. Her eyes scanned the car quickly. She noticed at last a place in a corner where a wall met the ceiling, that she could barely make herself look at. She turned her head slightly to first one side then the other, forcing her vision to focus on it anyway. Then she moved her eyes along the walls finding many other such places. Little metal devices had been fastened to the walls of the train car, she saw when she really tired hard, and clearly no one was meant to know that. The men knew by the expression on her face that she knew. It was clear to them all, that she was slowly but surely working everything out.

"How did you do that," one of them demanded with clear annoyance. His voice had a strange unearthly quality to it that greatly unnerved her, but she stood her ground.

"How'd I do what?" she asked in mock innocence. She gave a shrug of her shoulders, and waited for him, or perhaps one of the others, to speak again.

"It should have been impossible," the same one almost yelled at her. "We know you can see through our perception filters! No one here should be able to do that. How can you?"

"Considerable difficulty and a great teacher." Hailey said calmly, shrugging again. Her voice projected far greater calm and collectedness than she felt, but she forced herself to maintain her confidant act as she took a stop toward the group of four men. Her eyes made another loop of the car, and she saw that the young mother on board and scooped up the baby, while her older child had hidden his head in her sleeve. Others were wide eyed, silent and gasping in shock at what was unfolding around them. They'd begun to catch on now. They knew something was going on, and Hailey knew that aside from whatever else they might have become aware of, they would also likely still see her as some careless young lady standing up to gunmen.

"What are those for?" Her eyes went to first one and then another of the small metal boxes on the ceiling, as she asked her question of the men.

"Those boxes are not ours," one of the men said, greatly surprising Hailey.

"Whose are they then?" she demanded.

"Our hope is that no one here will have to find out." The man speaking lowered his weapon to the floor and at his signal the others did the same.

"So you are walking around with guns on a train, but your intention is not to shoot these people? I think you are defending it. Am I right?"

"We are defending it, yes. It's cargo is of great importance to us."

"Well, the people would not normally be referred to as cargo. Passengers."

"It's cargo is of great importance to us," the man in the coveralls repeated.

"Yes but that's not the right way to... oh wait..." Hailey said, catching on. "You're defending the train itself, not the people on it. Cargo means actual cargo, Stored in the luggage car."

"Correct."

"Okay, fair enough I suppose. But you don't have anything against the passengers?"

"The people are of no consequence. We will not kill anyone, but neither can we protect them."

"Alright," Hailey said, feeling far more confidant now, knowing that she was not actually dealing with crazed gunmen, and a possible high-jacking of a train. "So you're defending the train, for the sake of it's valuable cargo that it's transporting with the luggage and mail. Who or what are you defending it from? And please disengage your filters if you could. These people have a right to see the whole truth and understand much better."

"We are defending against a possible attack by the Morinions."

Hailey gasped at the name he had just mentioned. She knew that race, or at least she know of them. The Doctor had spoken of them a few times during their late night chit chat and study sessions. He'd never had a good thing to say about them. Morinions were shape shifters to an extent, though their ability had more limits than many other shape shifting races. They were bent on money and power, and believed fully that the two went hand and hand. They were well known both for stealing things of great value and for being extremely violent abut it when the opportunity arose. They generally felt that the universe was theirs use as they wished and that others should just give them anything they demanded just because they'd demanded it be so.

A blood curdling scream sent Hailey's gaze searching frantically for the source of the sound. Other shouts and cries of panic and terror rose up, first from near the first and then from all corners of the train car. Hailey walked forward quickly for several paces, until she reached the seat she had originally been sitting in. What she found happening was a shock even given her recent many experiences with so many possible races and worlds. The elderly woman that she'd shared a seat with had yanked her feet and knees up off the floor and was crouching helplessly on the seat avoiding a considerably large puddle of obviously living purple slime that wriggled over the floor under the seat. The old lady, armed only with her knitting needles, sat poised to stab the thing if it moved to make it's way over the seat.

"Oh... kay..." Hailey muttered to herself, under her breath. "Living slime on a train at Christmastime. Now I've probably seen it all."

The people that sat in the seats nearby, slowly moved out into the isle and then they ran for the back of the car. Finally, the old lady climbed sideways over the armrest aided by the young man behind her, and hurried back herself. Hailey, despite the crowd of passengers yelling at her to get back, stood closer, looking intently at the strange life-form, and thinking. That, she knew, had to be a Morinion, in one of it's forms.

"Where did that come from?" she asked the old lady.

"You need to be sitting down and staying out of trouble," was the lady's response.

"What is it with you and thinking I'm a trouble maker?" Hailey mumbled. Then her voice grew louder and far more serious as she again asked her question.

"I'm not really sure. I looked up and saw it wiggling over the ceiling. Then it just dropped and landed at my feet."

"Okay so it was in the air vent," Hailey said, motioning with her eyes toward the vent a couple of seats away. "Makes sense. What better place to hide if you are a ball of slime."

She turned to look at the group of found men in coveralls and armed with guns. They'd made their way to the front of the train, and stood alone while all the passengers were huddled in the back. The four still held their weapons tightly.

"So you are defending against Morinions, right?" she said.

"Correct." said one man.

"And that's a Morinion? That slimy thing?"

"Correct."

"So shoot it already!"

"In it's current form, our weapons would not harm it."

Hailey stopped for a minute to think the situation over. At first she wondered why the thing would change forms at all when it must have known that man had guns ready to shoot if it did. She realized though that while it's current form had enabled it to get inside with ease, it had no hands to do much with, and it could not move very fast at all.

"Tell you what," she said to the four men. "You need to protect the cargo on this train, right. Well I want to protect the people. Let's team up. You help me and I'll help all of you. Passengers and cargo all get off safely."

All four of the men gave brief nods as they began to take up potions on each corner of the train car. Hailey was waiting behind the slimy purple life-form as quickly and suddenly changed it's form and stood up. It was humanoid in it's new form, but barely seemed to fit the definition of such. Four large eyes looked over the gathered group of railway passengers at the back of the car, and six long arms waved sharp claws menacingly. The thing was still purple, and it was considerably short, but strong and stocky. It was unarmed Hailey noted to herself and she reasoned that it might well make good use of it's deadly claws as weapons of attack.

Hailey was ready for it before it even realized she was standing behind it. She picked up the business man's briefcase, from where he'd left it forgotten on his nearby seat, and with as much force as she could, she whacked the Morinion across the back of the head. It fell to it's knees with a look that could only be one of shock on it's very ugly face. It waved it's four arms in the air for a few seconds before it scrambled to it's feet.

"No no, wait," Hailey said, when she saw one of the four men, she was now an unofficial allay of, aiming his gun at the creature. "Don't shoot it. The Doctor would want us to give it a chance."

"You know the Doctor?" one of the men asked, as the other lowered his weapon with a look of confusion.

"Yeah, he's kind of a friend of mine," Hailey replied. She quickly grabbed one of the old ladies disgarded knitting needles that had fallen to the floor, and with it she poked the creature right in one eye as it advanced toward her, ready to snap it's claws at her nose. The Morinion yelped and stepped back, startled.

"You know the Doctor?" Hailey asked, without looking back, and while she waited, hoping the creature would take a hint and stop trying to attack her.

"His reputation and name are well known to my people," the man in coveralls replied.

"You will be the first to die!" the Morinion growled at Hailey, stumbling again to it's feet.

"Oh come on," Hailey reasoned. "I told those guys not to kill you."

"Yet first you said they should do precisely that. Terribly indesicive little thing you are."

"I'm a student," Hailey protested. "Do you have any idea how many steps to negotiation I have to remember at once. And this is not even in the books. The books all say I should not interfere."

"So why do you?" asked one of the red eyed men in coveralls. He was quite clearly trying to piece together things he did not fully understand. Hailey debated with herself whether it was likely he trusted her or not.

"I'm learning all I know from the Doctor," she explained cautiously. "He so often says that there would be little point in traveling to new places if one cannot meddle just a little bit."

"What are you?" The Morinion demanded, walking toward Hailey. "You are... different then the rest on board."

To Hailey's surprise, the creature walked closer and simply sniffed her much like a dog would. It was only then that she remembered once learning something about their use of smell to identify many living things.

"That should be impossible," the Moninion roared, backing up a pace or two and readying it's claws again. "A Time Lord!"

"Not quite yet," Hailey answered, shaking but trying hard to hide it, and appear unshakable and confidant again. "I've never made it through initiation yet. I take it then you must know of the last true Time Lord. The Doctor."

She'd only been trying to talk to the thing and get it to talk to her. She'd wanted to use honesty as a basis for understanding. But the creature's eyes grew wide at the mention of her friend's name. It began to look around nervously.

"The destroyer of worlds?" it cried in surprise and fright. "The same renegade that brought an end to his own planet!"

"What?" Hailey whispered in complete shock. All color drained from her face as she tried in the same moment to both deny, and wrap her head around the new information she'd learned. The Doctor could never have been the one to have destroyed Gallifrey... could he? Of course someone had, but the idea of it having been him was beyond sanity. She felt sick to her stomach and could only pray that she did not throw up, as she stood trying to hide her feelings.

She heard the firing of a weapon as one of the four men finally shot the Morinion dead. She found herself unable to react, though she'd wanted all along to try her best to stop anyone from dying. She heard herself speaking, telling others to return to their seats and they would soon reach London, but she was barely aware of doing so. She slid back into her seat herself, next to the old lady, who now only sat with her hands folded in her lap and refrained from looking at her.

Hailey stared out the window as the scenery raced past in a blur of motion. The train still moved on and on. Some one must have alerted the staff, but nothing was believed. She didn't even think to wonder why the train kept on going and no one had come into the car to check up on things. In the back of her mind she supposed it must have related to perception filters, but she couldn't be bothered to work all that out. She slumped against the window, emotionally exhausted, and somehow lonely in a crowd of strangers. Those strangers saw her so differently now, she knew full well. She saw herself as just another one of them, but they saw her as something strange - something nonhuman.

She was inwardly both furious with herself and heavily burdened by the weight of her failure. In hindsight she was certain that the Morninion had given her that line about the Doctor as the destroyer of Gallifrey, in order to shock her into giving it a moment in which to try to confuse her. The plan might have worked if that man in the overalls hadn't shot it dead when he saw an opportunity. She hadn't meant for the Morinion to die. She'd meant to find a way to work everything out between the races, if there was anyway she could.

The train ground to the stop at the main London station. Hailey stood with the others on board and joined them as they filed out, including the four overall wearing men, whose weapons were now hidden again. She avoided the four, and the rest of the passengers avoided them all. She knew that her nightmares, always bad in the past while, would only grow worse now, and she dreaded having to eventually sleep. She stepped out onto the platform and then into the busy doorway leading into the station.

"Hey," a voice called after her as she fished around in her purse for her mobile phone, while she walked through the inside of the station. "Wait up."

She turned to see the older of the young mother's two children, this one about nine years old hurrying after her. His mother, she saw, was busy zipping her toddler into his winter clothing on a bench near the station doors.

"Is it true?" the boy asked with wide eyed wonder. "You are really not a human?"

"I am half human," Hailey said, answering honestly, as she looked in dismay finding he phone battery dead. "My mother is human, but my father was a Time Lord."

"What does that mean? What planet are you from?"

"This one."

"But if you're some kind of alien, how can you be form Earth?"

Hailey smiled only very slightly at the child's questioning, as she walked away. Had her mood been better, she might have laughed, but she felt so utterly miserable, she could not think of much at all in the way of positive emotion. She quickly made her way to a pay phone along the back wall, near the washrooms and a vending machine, dropped change into it, and dialed with a shaking hand.

"Doctor," she cried on the verge of tears, and flooded with relief when she finally heard her friend's voice on the end of the line. She hadn't been sure she could reach the TARDIS from a pay phone, but she'd guessed that with a bit of quick button pressing to enter the codes as he'd once told her, she had a fair chance to getting the connection through the vortex.

"Hailey, are you alright? What's happened? You sound upset."

"I am upset," Hailey answered, letting her tears fall, as she leaned her forehead against the back wall of the booth. "Doctor, I want to... No, I need to come back to the ship. Can you come for me soon?"


	16. Chapter 16

"Hello?" Hailey called, entering the console room in the middle of the same night she had come back to the ship. She still wore the plaid flannel pants and the baggy t-shirt she'd worn to bed a few hours before, and carried a cup of hot chocolate and an apple in her hands. "Anyone in here? I saw a light on." She knew so well by that time that the ship turned lights on and off as it's occupants entered and exited most rooms, and walked along hallways.

"I'm back here," the Doctor said, standing up from where he'd been kneeling on the other side of the console.

"What are you up to?"

"Just fixing the monitor. We really do need to be able to see outside properly."

"Need some help?" Hailey asked. She set her cup down on top of the console, and munched on the apple.

"No thanks. I've got it now. It turned out it a wire had come loose underneath." The Doctor walked around to stand near her. "How are you? Better?"

"Actually yeah. I guess I just needed to come back home." Hailey stopped speaking for a moment and looked straight ahead in surprise. "Or wait... why would I call the TARDIS home?"

"Well, it is your home now, at least for the time being."

"I suppose it is. I do really feel quite a bit better though honestly. I just needed to put things into perspective."

"Do you want to talk about it all now?" the Doctor asked. His student had retreated to her room as soon as she was safely back on board, and had stayed there for at least the past five hours. He'd thought of going to ask her to come back out again, but Rose had convinced him to leave her alone. Hailey processed and dealt with things differently. She liked to hide out alone sometimes. She'd come back and talk when she wanted to. Finally they'd had to assume she'd gone to bed, and so they let the matter rest.

"I think I will one day soon, but not tonight. It doesn't seem so bad now, though" Hailey said. "Things happened, that I thought were too much to handle alone. But in the end it worked out in it's own way. I just got scared. How in the world do you do it?"

"How do I do what?"

"How can you just save the world time and again, not only Earth but many others too, and just walk calmly away like it was just another day at that office? I was only trying to look after about thirty people, and deal with an alien conflict that was still confined to a small train, and I got so scared I thought I'd pee myself."

"Me too most of the time," the Doctor said. "I just got used fear and panic becoming such a day to day thing. Never really know exactly what to do at first, never have a plan. I just kind of run while I'm thinking."

"Doctor, why do you do it? Why do you go jumping into trouble and trying to fix everything, even when it isn't your conflict?"

The two made their way down the hall a very short ways to the kitchen. Hailey looked at the Doctor intently as they sat down, still waiting for his answer to her question.

Instead of an answer though, he responded with a question of his own. "Why did you jump into that trouble on the train? That must not have really been your conflict either."

"I had to think of the safety of others. I could see and understand things that they couldn't. I suppose that made me somehow decide I had to be responsible for the situation. Doctor, is that how is it for you? Do you get involved because someone has to and there is no one else?"

"Sometimes, yeah. Other times though I guess I just like getting into things I shouldn't."

Hailey laughed, and then her face turned serious again as she asked, "Why were the Time Lords taught never to interfere in the affairs of others? Why see something terrible beginning and with the gift of seeing possible outcomes, know how badly it might end, and knowing they can stop it, choose to let it happen anyway? Just imagine all the wars that might have been stopped if they had stopped them. Imagine all the man made disasters that might never have happened on thousands of worlds."

"You're right about that," the Doctor relied, speaking thoughtfully himself. He looked at his student as she sat at the kitchen table, holding her cup in her hand and allowing her mind to process ideas and concepts and questions. He had always tried to teach her everything he could with far greater understanding and concern than many of his own teachers of years ago had done with him. He continued on with his ongoing efforts, and simply asked her curiously, "Why do you think that is? Why should a race of people not interfere?"

Hailey reacted to the question as thought it was a test of sorts. She looked down at the table, and thought intently, frustration filling her mind. "I'm sorry. I can't recall ever learning that before. I don't know the right answer."

"It isn't in a book," the Doctor laughed. "I just want to know your personal opinion."

"Well in a way I think the Time Lords were right to not get involved in everyone's affairs. If they were there to bail everyone out all the time, how would any less advanced and evolved race ever learn a thing for themselves. A species has to be allowed to evolve in it's own way, unaided. However it's okay to interfere sometimes too. If the Time Lords happened upon something awful, a coming disaster for example, while out and about in the universe, I think they should have at least looked into it. You wouldn't notice a man running around in downtown London during the morning rush hour with a gun, and not even think of phoning the police, would you. Even if you were safe inside your own home most people would phone for help, in concern for other's safety."

Hailey sat still waiting for the Doctor's response to her answer. She often surprised herself greatly by caring as much as she did in regards to what he thought of her opinions. She sat quietly, trying to find a little more to say, and concerned that her response was not enough of an answer to such a complicated question.

"That's a very insightful answer," the Doctor said after a couple of long silent minutes in which they sat simply looking at each other curiously.

"There is more I needed to talk with you about," Hailey stated, fidgeting nervously in her chair. She wondered for what had to be at least the fiftieth time that night whether she was making a mistake. She could only think though of the fact that it seemed she was still doing what was seemed to be right.

"Okay, go on..."

"Well," Hailey said, tossing the apple core into the bin near the counter. On the train, of course I ended up knee deep in trouble. Yeah, I was terrified and not sure what in the world to do, but I also realized my place in the world. There was a child on the train, and I suppose in the way only a child can, in his innocence and curiosity he made me realize what I was meant to be."

"Right..." the Doctor said, nodding his understanding up until that point and just waiting for her to go on speaking.

"I finally feel like I'm ready to go to take the next step," Hailey explained. "I thought I'd have nightmares about the train trip when I went to bed, but I couldn't sleep well enough to even dream at all. I was just so busy thinking it all over and that's the thought that occurred to me so many times in the past several hours."

"And you've put a lot of thought into it?"

"I've been thinking the whole thing for weeks at least. I even asked my mother what she thought. I hope I didn't break any rules by doing that. It wasn't until tonight though that I really knew I was ready to go ahead. It just seems so out of nowhere, but now I actually know!"

"Well that's... very good," the Doctor said.

Hailey stood up and went to boil water for a pot of tea. She looked back over her shoulder with the kettle in her hand ready to be placed into the stove. "You don't seem as happy as I imagined you'd be with that."

"I'd be just as happy either way. My personal opinion is that everyone should have made a decision themselves all along, and been about your age when they did so. I must be honest. I'm surprised that you want go ahead with an initiation. I was expecting you'd decide not to."

"I was expecting that too. I was almost ready to say no and let the matter rest at that. I'm tired of being too afraid to ever know what I'm capable of being though. I've been reading my Dad's journals, and then I took that little trip and saw my mother. Things make more sense now. We can run to the end of the universe to try to escape from things, but no one can ever run from themselves forever."

**Yeah, short chapter I know, but I had to stop there because that was the only logical place to end. I'll have more up soon if all goes according to plan. The next chapter should be an important one too. **


	17. Chapter 17

Hailey looked into the mirror in her bathroom, staring at her reflection, feeling entirely ridiculous and letting the feeling of silliness distract her from the fact that she felt nearly about to throw up from nervousness. She finished the task of tying her hair back and clipping it behind her ears with her hairpins. Such a simple thing would not typically take more than a moment or two, even if she were trying to look nice, but she had almost dropped clips down the sink a few times in the course of five minutes. She looked over her reflection again and shook her head at just how odd she looked to herself. She wore the simple and loosely fitted white pant suit with the black cuffs that had been left hung on the outside of her door that afternoon. With her hair pinned up, and no make up on, while wearing such a strange outfit, she thought she looked both younger than she normally did and completely non-human. She recognized her clothing as a close enough replication of the formal wear belonging to Gallifrain students that she'd seen pictured in her textbooks a few times.

She stepped out of the bathroom, and let the door shut behind her. Standing in the bedroom, she stood looking around at the pile of books on her desk, and then at her father's journal which still lay on her bed where she'd left it after reading a couple of pages that morning. She looked in the direction of her painting supplies on top of a shelf against the far wall, and reflected on how she had less and less time to paint those days. Shocked once again at just how much her life had changed in only half a year, she tidied up the covers on her bed again, though she'd only made the bed that morning. She hurried to the desk, pulled open the drawer and took out the locket her mother had given her for Christmas. Quickly she made a decision to put it on, did so and forced herself to step out the door into the hallway.

She made her way back to the console room to find the Doctor, not knowing what she was to expect and barely sure whether she should hurry or move with greater hesitation. In the end it seemed she did a little of both. She walked quickly, determined not to keep anyone waiting for her impatiently, but she stopped often on the short walk through the hallways she'd used hundreds of times. She found so many reasons to stop and think of any little random thing of so little importance. She remembered that she had left the desk drawer open and wondered if she should go back and shut it. She decided it wasn't anything she had to worry about and made herself keep walking. She wondered if she was remembered to turn off the water in her bathroom, and was sure she should turn back and check. The knowledge that the ship generally turned off forgotten water taps where there was no clear reason to leave them running, made her keep on walking and she tried to shake off her inner need to make excuses for stopping. She reached the door of the console room, and made herself keep on going instead of turning back to run to her room.

The Doctor was standing alone in the room, leaning calmly against one of the support beams. He wore one of his usual outfits, but had taken off his jacket and hung it of the back of the chair. He looked at her when she walked in and she could see a look of sadness at the familiarity of her appearance, show on his face for a moment. Blinking his eyes a couple of times though, he smiled brightly and moved a couple of steps away from the beam.

"Hello," he greeted her.

"Hi," Hailey said shakily.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, I think so. Just kind of freaked out."

The Doctor held out his arms and Hailey quickly stepped forward to accept a hug. She could hear her heartbeats pounding in both of her ears and she tried to stop her hands from shaking. She stared wide eyed around the room, trying her hardest to concentrate on not getting sick from fear and concern.

The Doctor had seen this reaction before, so many times. Throughout his school years, as he'd grown older and older he'd found himself at times out and about in the hallways of the school buildings for various reasons, sometimes during the initiation months of the younger students. For an older student, because they'd already been there and done that, no one cared too much if they were out in the halls while little ones were taken away. As long as they stayed out of the way and went about their business as though nothing and happened, and said not a word to any little children, there was not a problem. On some occasions, during years with particularly large second year classes, some of the oldest students, in their final few years, were assigned to helping with the task of pulling horrified little children from their rooms in the middle of the night.

He'd once been asked to do it, in his second last year. It had only happened that it was him who was coerced into helping because he'd simply been there while others were off doing who only knew what. He could only assume that being a warm night at the end of a study week, his classmates were down in the meadow where they tended to go whenever they could to mess about as young people would. No doubt the girls were flirting with the boys and the boys were trying hard with silly stunts to impress the girls while they all laughed and socialized. He was, himself just on his way back from his room, after running for a warmer change of clothing and planning to join the others in their silliness, when he'd had the misfortune of running into the headmaster.

Informed that the staff was once again shorthanded and needed someone to run quickly, grab a certain child from her room on the second floor and bring her as far as the edge of the woods, he'd argued that he was busy, studying for an exam, when in truth he mostly just didn't not wish to have any part of that. Reminded that he was two grade points away from failing his entire year, and unable to shake the image of his father's furious expression from his mind, he still argued, though with less courage. He quickly found himself threatened with a drop in his overall grade just for daring to argue with the headmaster, and it was then that he hurried off quickly to do what was asked of him. Reaching the room number he;d been given he slowly crept in and found the specified student. He did not wish to even wake her up and grabbing her pair of shoes from the trunk at the foot of her bed, he simply threw her covered around her and lifted her up into his arms, creeping slowly backward into the hall.

Of course the small child awoke when she was in the light of the hallway, and she began crying silently as soon as she realized she had finally been randomly chosen. He tired to make her stop, but as soon as she actually looked at him for the first time, and understood that she was looking at a fellow student and not a teacher at all, she cried harder, clearly hoping to gain his sympathy and find a chance to run and hide somewhere.

Dragging himself roughly from his memories of such a long time ago, he looked at Hailey again and reminded himself that she was different - everything was different now. Her expression reminded him so much of that of the child from so long ago though, as soon as the child had realized that he would not let go of her no matter how much she cried and finally just asked him to. The Doctor made himself continue to hold his calmness about him not wishing to frighten his already nervous student, but at the same time he fought back tears of guilt at the memory of how he'd made for the staircase with the girl still held firmly in his grasp, fearing for his grade and his father's resulting fury over his failure, if he let her go.

"Doctor?" Hailey's questioning voice saved him from sliding further into the downward spiral of remorse and negative memories he was becoming fully caught up in.

"Doctor!" she said again louder when he didn't answer her.

He forced himself to speak and to keep his voice calm, trying to hide his state of mind from her. "I'm sorry. Were you saying something?"

"I was just asking if you're alright. Are you?"

"Yes. Of course. I'm fine."

"Doctor, I'm not stupid. Far from it. Really, what's happened?"

"I always forget how insightful you are," the Doctor said quietly. Deciding he had really no other choice but to be honest, he told her about the night he'd been sent to take that child to the woods and hand her over to a teacher that would hurry with her out if sight and into the dense forest in the middle of the dark night. He explained that it had only been out of fear of letting down his father, who was always frowning at him during his visits home, over everything he said he dreamed of doing with his life, that made him wish to succeed more than to show understanding. He knew full well that his student would probably decide to give up then instead of going forward as she'd planned to, but he couldn't help but be honest anyway. It had always been her choice and he would let her keep the right to make that choice, knowing as much as she could.

"I've rarely meet a teenager in all my life who wasn't afraid of what at least one of their parents might think of them," Hailey said calmly, surprising him with her reaction. "It seems to me that situation was more your father's fault than yours. You only wanted to avoid letting him down by actually being yourself."

She stepped away from him a little so that she could look up into his eyes. "Was he always hard on you? Always degrading you for your life's ambitions?"

"It isn't that he didn't love me," the Doctor said, enforcing that point with the tone of his voice, tying to make it clear that the fact was important to keep in mind. "Of course he loved me. I was both his youngest child, and the only son. For those reasons, though he loved all four of his children a lot, I think I had a special kind of place in his life. It was so rare for a Gallifrain parent to not love each of their children. It's more that he wanted such different things for me than I wanted for myself. I tried once in a while to tell him that I dreamed of traveling the universe and he'd tell me that the view of the stars from the surface of Gallifrey was just as good as it was on other planets. I said once that I just didn't get the idea of never getting involved in the affairs of other planets, and he told me that perhaps I just needed to read the books on the matter again and I'd understand. I loved music, and he said that it was just so loud and unneeded. He was a politician, and couldn't see why I was more interested in science than in politics. I just don't think he ever really understood who I was. By the time I was about sixty, which I suppose to a human would be the equivalent of teenage-hood, we just had so little we could talk about without him so clearly implying that I was a fool and an up and coming failure."

"That's terrible," Hailey said. "Really though, as bad as it was, he really did likely just want for you to succeed. I don't know as much about Gallifrain society as I probably rightly should by now, but it does seem to have been a society that expected the highest of standards from as many people as possible. In a world where succeeding was next to impossible, almost everyone was successful. Talk about a high pressure childhood."

Even more impressed by that time, with Hailey's insightful nature and nature wisdom in matters years beyond her age, the Doctor thought back with some regret to the time he'd only too recently ranted to Rose that his student was emotionally immature.

"Whatever happened to that little girl?" Hailey inquired, curious.

"Well I don't know exactly, but I can tell you that she went on to become one of the top ranked students at the academy in later years. She had a decent and respectable life later on."

"Doesn't sound like she was traumatized for life then."

"Well no, of course not. She was only a part of our world the way it always was."

"Exactly," said Hailey. She looked at him intently, with her expression serious. "And so were you."

Once again floored by her insightfulness, he felt tears come to his eyes, and blinked then away quickly.

"Do you wish to proceed?" he asked, letting the matter of his childhood drop. Hailey looked at him silently for a moment, considering for the last time.

"Yes," she said finally, nodding slightly.

For the first time, the Doctor explained a little bit more than just the very basic and needed information.

"In the days of long ago, before all the new ways of initiating students, the time ships of our world played a role in the entire thing. See, as you already have a basic understanding of, this ship can fly through time and space by navigating the non-physical space of the time vortex. In there, time exists as a series of set events, and infinite possibles all kind of free falling though nothingness. Any place and time can become the next event in what looks almost like a sense of order in a way we can comprehend it. We can enter co-ordinates and have a place to go in mind all we want, but in order for a ship to really get there, it has to in it's own way have a type of understanding of where within the vortex that place or time is. To the TARDIS the time vortex is as physical and concrete and stable of a thing as a room or landscape is to us."

"So, you're saying that your ship can 'see' time in the way we see other things, like a sidewalk or a box?"

"Well in a way yes. But it sees in a different way. It's almost like seeing and knowing at the same time as one combined sense."

"And it doesn't get itself confused a lot?" Hailey asked, her question completely serious.

"No more than you would confused looking to see where a sidewalk ends and a wall begins," the Doctor explained. "You'd just know right away without really thinking about it, where the wall was, so you won't run right into it."

"That's amazing," Hailey admitted seriously. "I suppose not everything in the universe experiences senses the way we do. It just seems like everything must, but then really, why should it."

"It is pretty amazing. As you understand, the ship is alive in some sense. What you've never yet come to learn is just how much intelligence it carries. This ship, and in the old days, many just like it, is at a level of intelligence far beyond you or me. It's such a different type of intelligence though, that we cannot really see it as such at all. Now, what I intend to do, is to take your mental awareness and hand it over to the mind of the ship so that it can merge it with the vortex."

Hailey only looked at him, her face covered by a blank expression. Slowly she blinked her eyes as understanding began to register in her mind. Of course, because he could communicate in some way that she still did not understand, with his ship, and she could not do that, he would have to act as a go between to link her mind to that of the TARDIS. They'd been practicing with the mind merging techniques that apparently most Time Lords eventually learned to master quite well, but she had never before imagined that their periods of practice would lead up to such a thing as he planned to do now.

"No one can look at the time vortex itself directly," the Doctor was saying. She made herself focus on understanding his words. "To do that and as a result, take on so much of it's power into a physical living mind, is an extremely bad idea."

He did not mention to her that only a month or so before they had met her, Rose had quite by accident due to lack of understanding, done pretty much that exact thing, and could quite easily have killed both of them, and possibly the ship. Instead, he simply continued his explanation. "The ship however can show it to you indirectly and use her own mind to show you the power to time and infinite potential. To allow it to do that required a few minor temporary alterations to the ship, but with it's agreement I've done all that easily."

"I... hmm... Okay..." Hailey said unable to really form a truly coherent response. She was once again overwhelmed with nervous fear, but still determined not to suddenly give up.

"Oh wait," she said, finally noticing a fact that she felt foolish for missing all along. "Rose isn't on board?"

"No. I dropped her off at her mother's flat in London earlier. We'll go and pick her up tonight."

"Oh... Okay." Hailey had to admit she was a bit disappointed that her other good friend had left for a while, but she also completely understood why it had been that way. She only stood where she was, unmoving and wondering once again foolishly if she had remembered to shut off the water in her bathroom sink. She stared at the floor.

"Ready?" the Doctor asked her. She nearly jumped off the floor, startled by hearing him speak, though she'd known he was standing right there all along.

"Yes. I think so."

The Doctor gently tipped her head up a bit with one hand under her chin, making her look up at him and stop staring down at the grating of the floor. He put one hand on each side of her head, and for a brief moment he just looked at her, trying to be certain she was alright. She just stood still, look at him with both uncertainty and determination in her eyes. After a brief second both eyes shut.

As soon as she had shut her eyes, and of course she'd not even done that intentionally, Hailey found herself caught up in the state of mind she'd so long called a nightmare. She was aware of blackness all around and it did not even occur to her to wonder if she existed in the physical world or not. She was aware of turning and looking all around but of seeing at first nothing at all, and then only distant colored lights when she struggled to make out images. The all to familiar lights began to spin and then finally they appeared to form a spinning around her. She was pulled slowly forward into the bright field of whirly light and she began to panic just as much as ever before. She had grown so used to waking up from sleep after having such things occur in the night and so it was only natural that this time when her mind began to once again process what she was seeing, she once again thought right away of trying to wake up. For one small moment she tried to do exactly that, and then when it failed which of course it always had at first every time, she realized that this time she was not sleeping and therefore, not dreaming. She also remembered that this time she was not completely all alone.

While she understood somehow that the Doctor could not help her and could not show her the right way to go, he would also not let anything terrible happen to her. She still struggled against it as she was pulled forward further into the vortex of lights, but slowly she gave up and allowed herself be be pulled along. She could see numbers now again, and for the first time ever she noticed that the numbers were organized into separate dates and years. 11 04 1991 was one combination of numbers she saw more than once. Her birth date. 03 06 1969. Her mother's birth date. 11 10 1995 , the day her grandmother that she'd never been able to meet, was said to have passed away. She slowly started to recognize more of them as she more calmly observed and thought them over. Dates of important events in Earth history, permanently imprinted upon the mind of Earth's people. Her lifelong passion for history allowed her to match nearly every one to an event that she knew well enough.

She felt herself pulled forward faster and faster and it was at that moment she became slightly aware of her physical form again. She felt as though she was being rapidly pulled away from it and of course as she was so used to doing she panicked again and tried hard to drag herself back to conscious reality. She felt her heartbeat increase drastically as she tried to no avail to pull herself from the situation of the moment.

"Help me!" she screamed without a clue whether she was shouting out loud or only in her head. She was sure that if she did not wake up within seconds she would die. She could not convince herself no matter how hard she may have tried, that the thought was completely irrational.

A voice in the distance called loudly but incoherently to her. She tried to make out what it said while at the same time trying to shut it out and make it stop speaking. The physical world seemed further and further away and the voice grew louder. She understand for the first time that it was not one single voice that spoke, but an infinite number of separate ones, saying both nothing and everything. The lights grew brighter and the vortex spun faster and faster. This was the farthest she'd ever been before waking up in terror. This time she knew that if she could just drag her mind back to conscious awareness she could wake herself up again. But all the same she wanted to go on. She'd only been living through what she thought were nightmares before. This was a moment of importance now. She'd reached a point that could well change everything. She refused to run. She was tired of being afraid of the nightmare.

"You have reached the beginning of a new understanding!" the voice, clear and perfectly coherent in the midst of the all the other chaotic and noisy chatter and shouting around her.

In her confusion she wanted to question and wonder why the Doctor would speak to her now and nearly put an end to the feeling of calm she had finally began to reach in regards to the whole thing. She reacted with annoyance for a moment but then she had to stop and notice that the voice that had spoken was not his at all. This one was more or less female, without a true sound of feminine tone to it. It sounded to be neither gender really, but had a female feeling to it. Hailey wondered how she actually understood that in the first place, as she looked, startled, for the source of the voice but saw no one.

"Are you the consciousness of the ship?" she asked in her mind. She felt the soundless laughter and understanding happiness and humor of whatever it was that had found her.

"For all the brilliance you have so often shown, I would have expected you might have caught on with slightly more speed in this situation," the unseen voice answered.

"This is still all so new to me," Hailey said lightly, in her own defense. "Six months ago I was just some minimum wage late shift worker from London. What do I know about telepathic time ships?"

"It's alright. I understand that your circumstances are far from typical."

"Thank you."

"How do you feel, Alyrea?"

"Still so afraid," Hailey answered, compelled to answer honestly, sure that the ship would know if she lied. "Will it get worse still?"

"No better, but no worse. Just different," the ship said in her mind.

"Why did you call me by the wrong name anyway? My name is Hailey! Surely you knew that."

"I did indeed know that."

"Then why use the wrong one? And how are you speaking in English?"

"I did not use the wrong name. I used the right one. And I don't speak in English. You only hear it as such."

Hailey found herself drifting back to partial awareness in the physical world but at the same time maintained a presence in the world in her mind. In front of her field of vision she could see so many imagines and pictures that she could not even begin to try to understand any one of them clearly as each moved away so fast. It was, she realized with great distress, the pain within her body and her head that had begun to drag her back again. Both of her hearts felt like they were beating so hard and so fast that the pain through her chest was intense. Her head felt like it would explode from pressure. She saw for the first time that the lights had stopped and disappeared, and that she was surrounded only by the rapidly flashing pictures. She wanted to look closer at them, but she was so distracted now by the increasing pain. she began to get scared all over again, though she has just finally began to calm herself and get used to the new experience.

"Hailey," the Doctor's voice said clearly out loud. She was momentary confused by the use of two different names for herself, from two different sources. "Try not to panic now. It's alright."

She looked around in her own mental world again, her mind having retreated back into it, probably from the intense physical discomfort. She understood now. She had the power to control the images around her. Blackness did not have to be black and far to open and frightful. The lights did not have to frighten her. She was truly seeing into time and space, but now that she fully understood that, she could choose how she might view such things.

She understood fully once and for all how time could exist completely in so many different points at once and how an event at any given time could effect every event that might occur after that. She how how certain fixed points that existed throughout space and time, spread out at certain random spaces in the time line, served as placed in which everything came back to it's predestined order of events. She saw before her the enormity of the responsibility she now shared a part of, in the understanding and comprehension of such things, and the importance of allowing the free will of nay being that choose to use it against the benefit of the time lines. She saw the enormity of her role in the universe and she realized just how hard it might be for only two to take all that on by themselves. She understood though at the at time, the way that the time lines repaired and maintained themselves, and she saw herself and Time Lord society as little more than the race who had first gotten to the task of understanding something that had already existed for infinite years before. They had harnessed the power of this great and unstoppable force, but with that came such great accountability to anyone and everyone throughout the universe in any period in history and future.

The consciousness of the ship still held firmly to her awareness sending her calmness and comfort, while allowing her see in a way the way it saw and understood the idea of ever changeable yet never changing time. Suddenly though and with a shocking quickness, it's awareness released her mind completely from it's own and Hailey abruptly returned fully to her physical awareness. Her hearts both pounded rapidly and her entire body shook and trembled. Her eyes opened wide and she found herself staring into the Doctor's eyes for a brief second before she collapsed completely unconscious.

The Doctor had seen the start with which she suddenly opened her eyes and had read open complete and utter confusion in her nearly blank gaze as she seemed to look almost through him barely seeing a thing at all. Quickly but with great caution, he managed to get his arms around her just in time to catch her as she fell backward, and place her gently onto the floor of his ship.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N; Okay, eighteen chapters now. Way longer than I originally imagined this story would be and I'm not quite done yet. I'm going to wrap it up within a few chapters now ,and I have the ending all worked out. **

Hailey awoke lying uncomfortably on the floor of the TARDIS' console room. With a groan of discomfort she opened her eyes and looked to see the Doctor kneeling next to her, buzzing his sonic screwdriver over her body, seemingly trying to use it for the purposes of medical scanning. He didn't look all too concerned over her obviously having fallen completely unconscious, and for that she was relieved. His clear calmness and lack of any real worry over her condition told her it might not be a big deal at all.

He looked at her, saw her eyes open, and calmly tucked the screwdriver into his pocket. She found herself feeling far more embarrassed than much else, as she waited for him to speak and slowly sat up on the floor.

"Hello," he said, smiling.

"Doctor? What happened?"

"Nothing happened really. You just lost consciousness for couple of minutes. You're alright."

"So, I was only passed out for a few minutes then?" Hailey questioned, reassured by that information. "Not like hours or anything?"

"Nope, of course not." The Doctor jumped to his feet and extended a hand to help Hailey to hers. She gratefully accepted the help and felt fine to stand up.

"Please tell me that's normal, the whole losing consciousness thing," she said, as she walked with him in slow steps toward the sitting room.

"Well there is to be quite honest, so little information available on initiations. Back home many aspects of the whole matter were kept pretty secret and hidden. We only knew what we personally experienced, what others eventually told of their own experiences, or the little that was printed in the books and public records. There is mention though of quite a few of the little ones almost every year just simply falling over onto the ground. No reason to think someone a little older would be any different or that method would matter much. Everything seems perfectly fine."

"Doctor?" Hailey questioned. "Do I have to keep quiet about... well everything?"

"You mean in the way of everything you saw, and learned and were shown?"

"Yeah. Basically. Am I permitted to at least discuss it with you?"

"Well of course," the Doctor said. He sat down on the sofa against the wall across from the door.

"Why did no student on Gallifrey ever really say anything to anyone about their initiation experiences as children? Was it forbidden or something? Actually it would be hard to stop an eight year old from talking anyway."

"It isn't that we were forbidden to speak of it at all. It was only that we were forbidden to say anything to our classmates in that year. Most of the higher ranked teachers, and certainly the headmaster, just seemed to be the type of people who could put the fear of god into a small child if they wanted to. When they asked us to not say anything about any certain subject we just didn't do so. We did talk a bit with our teachers though and some of us talked with our parents later in the year when we went home to visit. It sometimes took a while though for a young student to even want to talk to anyone at all about any of that. We were just children. Most of us could hardly process a thing of it well enough to say a word."

"I can hardly imagine the horror of that," Hailey said. "An eight year old trying to comprehend the power of time and space. Most children at that age still run around and play with toys."

The Doctor sat silently for a minute looking at her and trying to find the right words with which to respond to her comment. Finally he began to explain briefly that to the point, as children they did play much like human children did. There was so little time for such things though after they left their parents and went to live in the school dormitories. He explained that even the youngest students studied for long hours and spent several more involved in organized recreation of various sorts. He told her of some of the memories he had though of running across the endless fields of his parents land while he visited home every now and then. He explained that he'd played with friends at school during the evening breaks and the end of study weeks, and even relayed a couple of memories of finding himself the victim of schoolyard bullying.

"That eventually led to a playground fight," he said, of the bullying incidents of days long gone by.

"A fight?" Hailey questioned, surprised. "You mean a fist fight like you might see in schoolyards on Earth?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"How did that happen?"

"Well in a pretty typical way really," the Doctor answered. "That bully was a year or two older than I was, and had been picking on me and several others for a least a year. You know, the common things that children do to bother other children; throwing our books into the bin, insulting everyone, tripping us in the halls, you get the idea. So, one day I had a run in with him in the school yard on the way to class. He said something nasty about my father. Finally I'd had enough of his bullying and I hit him. Of course he hit back, and that did it. We got into a fight. Both of us wound up in a world of trouble over that incident."

Hailey laughed, although she knew that the incident in itself was not exactly a laughing matter. "Oh wow. That's so human-like! That sounds like some of the schools I went to. That kind of thing was sometimes almost a weekly occurrence."

"Well, it wasn't quite that common of a thing at the academy, but it did happen from time to time. It wasn't just the boys either. Sometimes, just like on Earth, the girls would get into fights, or talk behind each other's backs. Actually come to think of it, that may well have been what started some of those girls fighting."

"In some ways it sometimes seems like your planet would have been so much like this one and growing up there would not have been too strange at all. Other times it sounds so different and far away."

"Well you'll often find that same case with many planets. Some things seem like home and then other times you're lost completely."

"I think your ship tried to rename me," Hailey said after a silent moment or two.  
"Oh?" the Doctor looked at her, interested.

"It referred to me as Alyrea. I tried to correct it, but it said that wasn't a mistake. Is that my other name?"

"It seems it would be, yes. But the TARDIS didn't name you. It would have simply been able to understand the name the universe had for you."

"I think that the nightmares - or at least the terrible ones of moving into darkness - are finished now," Hailey said. "The dreams were only the beginning. I understand that so much better as well. I know how far I have to go before I even come close to knowing a significant amount of anything. But I also see that it doesn;t matter how much we really know in the end. it's how we use what we've got. there is so much to learn for myself and so much to come to understand in time."

"Doctor," Hailey continued after once again falling silent for a moment or two. "There is so much I can hardly put into words right this moment, so much I need time to process properly. Do you mind if we talk more later?"

"No, of course that's fine." The Doctor stood up from his chair. "Well Rose will be waiting to be picked up. Come and help me plot a course back."

"But Doctor, the estate would have been the last place we materialized. Why not just use the auto return sequence?"

"No reason not to. But I want you to learn more about the ship. Plotting is a nice beginning."

~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~

The marketplace on Alteron Four was crowded with more than usual, of what was apparently typical of it's group of widely varied alien patrons. Hailey turned around a corner, around the edge of a stall from which a blue skinned woman with wildly spiked orange hair shouted about deals on trade alliance tokens, and nearly bumped right into the chest of a very tall green fellow in metal armor. The armor clad alien growled a little under his breath and cast a disapproving look down at her.

"Sorry," Hailey mumbled. "Pardon me."

The alien growled again.

"Hey I said I was sorry!" Hailey exclaimed, growing annoyed and even concerned with his impatience. She quickly stepped around him and hurried out of his way. He stomped off into the crowd, and she went to catch up to Rose and the Doctor, who were browsing though a booth run by a man selling electronics.

"Hailey, careful around that guy," the Doctor, referring the the green alien in the armor. "His people tend to get a bit territorial and pushy."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Hailey said, rolling her eyes in disbelief at the overreaction of the big green market goer.

As the Doctor continued to browse through the booth, clearly looking for a specific piece of technology and then finally discussing the matter with the man selling goods, the two young woman stepped over toward a bench to sit and wait, both of them concerned about the large crowd of people and trying to stay out of the way.

"So I just have to ask," Rose said, flopping down onto the the bench in a small area away from the venders booths, and out of the dense crowd of shoppers. She was tired from a morning of wandering through the huge outdoor market. "Are you alright?"

"Sure." Hailey, who still often liked to sit on the ground, sat herself down on the clean cement in front of the bench. "That big green guy didn't really do anything. He just growled at me. It's all a fear invoking tactic really is all. It seems that if..."

"No I mean with the initiation into Time Lord society. Or... something like that." Rose stopped speaking and looked uncertainly at her friend, unsure of her wording and suddenly concerned about offending her.

"Yeah, of course I'm alright," Hailey said. She looked back into the crowd for a moment and then up at a shuttle craft that was on descending toward the base nearby, preparing to make a landing. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"No reason I guess. I can just imagine that it was pretty huge of a thing."

"Yeah."

"So... are you... ? Are you still... well the same as always?"

"Yes. Well almost... sort of. Umm... I can't really explain very well..."

"Okay weird question here, but are you pretty much a proper Time Lord now?" Rose stopped again in the midst of a thought and looked mildly confused for a second before she went on slowly. "Or... you're a girl, so would it be Time Lady in your case?"

"I actually have no idea," Hailey said, laughing. "I've never bothered to question the gender wording. Wow, I suppose I should know that."

She took on a slightly more serious tone as she went on. "Anyway, I'm still very much a student. I'll be a student for years and years yet. There's just so much to learn. I'll never know anywhere near everything I should be all rights have ever known."

A young couple, a girl with bright pink skin and white hair, and a young purple skinned man with four arms, walked passed holding hands. The two woman were distracted from their conversation, when the young couple choose that moment and and a spot right within their field of vision, to lean against the side wall of a booth and very publicly and obviously display their physical attraction towards one another. The male pressed the young female against the wall and with two of his arms on her hips and two around her shoulders he kissed her passionately. There were clearly no objections from the girl, who wrapped both her arms around his waist and leaned casually against the wooden surface.

"Oh my goodness," Rose cried in shock as soon as she, along with at least fifty other people of various races in the marketplace clearly saw the female slip both her hands into the back of the male's loose fitting blue pants. He then just as clearly turned her away from the wall and let two of his hands work their way under her top. "Well that's not something people need to know about in a public marketplace."

Hailey, who had thought little of it, only gave a simple and dismissive reply. "People do worse at times in the shopping malls and city busses back in London."

"Yeah. But these are two clearly different alien species."

"So?"

"So, it's just... weird. Nothing at all wrong with interracial dating, but those two are just over the top."

"You and the Doctor are two different alien races, and no one thinks much of it."

"Yeah," Rose said, distracted and watching the crowds go past. "But he looks human so..." She suddenly turned right back to look at her friend and her eyes went wider. "Wait... what?"

"Well you two are sort of together aren't you?"

"Huh? No!"

Hailey was laughing hard at her friend's clear and obvious confusion, but Rose only stared her her for a few seconds as though she suddenly had two heads.

"Why do so many people just assume...?" she said finally, but did not even bother to finish her thought.

"Well because it looks pretty clear that you both love each other," Hailey said, her laughter finally ceasing. "Even if you've never actually bothered to tell each other that yet. Wow you two are a weird couple of people."

The Doctor hurried back toward them, his eyes quickly scanning the crowd to locate them. The relief that his companions had not wandered off, was evident in his expression.

"Not a word!" Rose said to Hailey, in a completely serious tone.

"Okay, okay, I won't say anything." She held up her hands in a mock gesture of surrender, and then moved one hand to her lips to make a motion of zipping her mouth shut, by drawing two fingers from one side to the other. Both of them stood up, ready to go.

~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~

"Mum," Hailey said, walking into the now relatively familiar room her mother occupied at the Belmont hospital. "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by."

Hailey walked into the room when she heard no reply, and her mouth widened in shocked surprise. Her mother's personal belongings were no longer present in the room, and the only thing that was clearly not hospital property in there, were the five small boxes that were stacked neatly near the closet.

"I wanted to thank you so much for the Christmas gift," Hailey said, when Abigail walked from the room's adjoining bathroom, with a smaller box of things in her hands. She set the box of bathroom supplies on top of a box labeled as clothing.

"Oh, I have your photo album to return to you as well." Hailey held the little white book out with one hand. "I made copies of most of the pictures in there with the TARDIS computer. I put them all into a little album of my own, with my other pictures."

"You must have photographs from all over the universe and throughout all of history," Abigail said. She sat down in the little wooden chair near the window.

"Yeah, I do. I'll have to show you them all some day."

"Anyway, you're very welcome. For the gift I mean. I really hoped it's something you might have liked. I wish I knew better what to get for you but I guess I have a long time to get to know you again, right."

"I really do love it. Thank you again."

"So," Abigail clapped her hands together with excitement. "What do you want for Christmas this year? I still don't know you very well and I'm so worried I'd choose a gift you'd hate."

Hailey laughed. "Mum, you still have a whole year to think about next Christmas. This on just passed from the looks of it." She indicated toward the decorated tree in the sitting room across the hall. "The staff haven't even taken the tree down this year yet."

"Hailey, the Christmas decorations just went up on the ward yesterday. Me and several other patients decorated that tree last night."

"What?" Hailey exclaimed, confused. "But it looks like it's about the first week of January, just after new years. I thought it was only a few weeks since I last came."

"It was probably only a few weeks for you," Abigail said, "but from my perspective down here, it's been eleven months. Today is the eighteenth of November."

"How can that be? How can I have possibly missed eleven entire months?" Hailey was suddenly more than a little upset and shaken up over the news. "I'm sorry this happened. I'm sorry I was gone for so long."

"I understand completely. Time travel isn't always an exact science. Of course I missed you and I so often thought of you, but I know you'd come back."

"So, I guess I've missed a lot then. You're packing up your things. What's happened?"

"I'm getting out of here," Abigail said with happiness in her voice. "I got my discharge papers very recently."

"That's great."

"It is. It will sure be strange though being out in the world again. I've been in here for almost seventeen years."

"The government must be in some way helping you out with making a start I'd assume. Or at least I'd hope so. I take it you've found a place of you own to rent."

"I'm not actually all on my own," Abigail explained. She choose her words with great care, clearly unsure of what her daughter's reaction might be. "I'm moving into the home of the man I'm engaged to be married to."

"You're getting married? Wow... I mean congratulations to you I suppose. So, who's the guy? how'd you two meet?" Hailey tripped over her words, trying to make intelligent conversation.

"He was my boss, actually," Abigail said. "Obviously I quick working for him though once we became somewhat of an item."

"You were working? You found a job? Wow, I really have missed a lot."

"The hospital runs a work placement program with some of the local businesses around here. Some of the long term patients here who have off site privileges are able to qualify to be placed into very part time work somewhere. I'd never done it before, but last year, actually not long after you last visited I decided I'd like to try working, just for Something to do and bit of extra money aside from my government benefit. I was able to get a placement, doing some filing and book keeping for a local accountant. I worked in book keeping before my breakdown years ago, so he said he'd take me on. Anyway, he didn't mind at all that I was a mental health patient. We just started talking at first after work and on coffee breaks. He lost his wife and little boy,about ten years ago in a car accident. He told me that one day, after I'd told him it was the loss of your father that led to me ending up at Belmont. For a while we just pretty much spent a bit of time after work talking about things like grief and loss. Then we started to talk about so many other things. He finally asked me to have dinner with him, and than slowly I started to visit his house. He proposed to me about a month ago. We've set the date for this February. That's so fast I know, but what's the point in waiting. It'll be a small wedding. Not much planning to do really."

Hailey blinked her eyes a couple of times at her mother's fast rush of words, and could only hope she'd understand all of the information correctly. After a very brief silence she said genuinely, "well that's really great. I'd imagine he was so happy when you told him you've out of here."

"He was. Neither of us was really sure if I could get discharged easily or not. We were actually planning to appeal to the court to grant my discharge. After all, I'm not dangerous, I've been in here for years, and I have every right to a life now don't I. In the end though it was medical cut backs that did it. No appeals, nothing. I was just at breakfast one day and a nurse comes over and quietly tells me that they've been ordered to cut the number of in-patients, due to budgetting cuts. I was one of the ones They've decided to discharger, just because I'm not a danger to anyone or myself."

Hailey opened the drawer of the nightstand and began to pack the assorted things such as a note pad, pens, slips of paper and other random items into a small empty box.

Abigail went on speaking. "So then last night after I called him, George, my fiance, came and brought me some boxes. Then we set our date in February. We're both so happy and excited. Hailey my dear, I can't wait for you to meet George. I told him about you already. He knows I have a daughter who's all grown up, and he knows about our recent reunion after you'd spent years in the system. He's so excited about meeting you. Oh, thank you for packing that up. I completely forgot to even look in that drawer."

"Mum, you didn't tell him everything did you? I mean all about that fact that dad was from a planet who's people devoted their lives to knowledge of time and space, and that your daughter is the very last Gallifrain student."

"I did tell him. I told him what I could anyway. There's so much I'll never understand and that's okay with me. I told him though that you father wasn't human that you are therefore something a bit different. I told him I've been to the edge of creation and back. There's so much we've talked about."

"And he believed it? He's actually okay with it?"

"Yes. Some things are hard for people to wrap their heads around at first, but eventually some people can come to believe in seemingly impossible things."

"Well then," Hailey said, placing the box in her hands on top of another of those by the closet, "in that case I look forward to meeting him."

"I'll make sure I arrange dinner for all of us next time you're around," Abigail said. "George is going to be so happy when I tell him you're okay with all this and you want to get to know him a bit. He was so worried you'd be mad when you found all this out. You'll be invited to the wedding of course as well. Not sure how I can send you an invitation though. Oh, it'll all work out somehow. I'll just give it to you personally next time I see you."

Hailey listened as her mother rambled on and on in her excitement. She finished packing her things for her, tossing little nearly forgotten odds and ends into a box that she had reopened. The two of then then sat for a few minutes saying nothing and just looking out the window overlooking the courtyard. Abigail explained finally that a co-worker from George's office was coming in a short while to take her over to her soon to be husband's house in the country, just past the other side of the village. She thought then that she'd probably have a few hours to unpack her things before George got home form a business meeting in city not far away. "Anything more I can do to help?" Hailey asked after another pause in the conversation.

"Nope. I believe it's all packed. John will help me carry everything out to his car when he gets here, and I've already handed in my discharge forms to the front desk. I can't believe I'm actually out of here!" Abigail grinned with cheerful excitement. "My own life again!"

Abigail looked out the window again, and pointed out a blue car on it's way into the parking lot. "Oh, well that would be George's friend now. I have to be off. You must have things to get done too. Studying and tests and adventuring and all that."

"Yeah. I'm planning on doing a little bit of painting tonight."

"Okay then. I guess this is another see ya later, 'til next time."

"Sure. Well bye then. Good luck to you, Mum."

"You too. And have fun."

"You have fun too."


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N; I'm not very happy with this chapter at all. for whatever reason i just couldn't get it to read in a way I thought worked well enough. However I do need to stop driving myself nuts with my borderline perfectionist tendencies. So, here we go anyway, far from perfect but in acceptance that it's the best I can do at this time with this bit...a new chapter! **

Hailey had started her day with mixed feelings of curiosity, and excitement, combined with complete dread. As it was, she was glad to visit her mother at the house she now lived in, if for no other reason than the fact that getting the breakfast time introduction between her and George over and done with. She wanted to meet him of course, and she was happy for her mother. But at the same time she could hardly shake off the thoughts of any and all things, however unlikely, that could be wrong with the whole situation or even with the man himself. She wondered for the first time, as she left the parked TARDIS as soon as it finished it's landing procedure, and crossed the quiet country road to walk along the side of it for a short while to the house whose address she carried with her, how she really felt about her mother finding someone new.

She had found herself so caught up in the happiness of no longer having a mother who was living in a mental hospital, and might finally be more like the mother's she knew other young ladies had, that she had forgotten to even be concerned with the fact that her mother was soon to be the wife of someone who was not her father. Hailey, most likely because of the young age she had been when her father had disappeared from her life and the circumstances of her father's life and death, most often tended to view her two parents as very separate parts of her life and certainly as very separate and unrelated people. It was not even a constant of most of t time a pressing thought that her parents had once been a couple in love with each other. She know they had been of course. She had some of the photographs of the two of them as young lovers. Most often though they just seemed to each have had a separate role in her life. At that moment though, walking slowly along the side of the country road, she remembered fully for the first time in a surprisingly long time, that her father had once been the only man her mother had thought she'd ever love.

As she rang the doorbell of the admittedly charming and beautiful little white English cottage with the brown trim around the windows, she silently wondered if she was supposed to resent George simply for loving her mother. That didn't quite seem like the right thing to do, and yet at the same time, in some other part of her mind it did. She was glad to be spared of the need to go on contemplating the way she was supposed to react to the fast upcoming marriage, when she was let inside the house by her mother, who had come to the door in jeans, a simple blouse and bare feet to let her in.

George Markson, as it turned out, was a nearly middle aged man with thinning brown hair and a considerably short stature. He sat at the kitchen table with a London newspaper open in front of him, wearing a beige shirt and a pair of dress pants, reading the stock market report. He folded his paper closed as soon as his finance entered with their guest, and smiled a greeting.

"Hailey, please have a seat," he said politely, gesturing toward one of the kitchen chairs.

"Thanks," Hailey answered simply. She sat down in a seat in front of the large dining room window.

"So," George made an attempt at casual conversation, "Abigail tells me you're and artist and a student of, well I suppose we could say advanced science and alien culture."

"I suppose you could put it like that, yes."

"What type of art do you do?" George questioned, and Hailey found herself relieved that he had chosen that as the topic of conversation instead of questioning her about Time Lords, Time travel, Gallifrey and other things that she knew she'd never be able to explain.

"I'm a painter mostly," she explained. "Of course I can draw too."

"Your mother is quite a talented artist as well. But of course you knew that."

"I didn't know."

George looked sad for a moment before he spoke again. "I'm sorry. I'd forgotten that you and Abigail have only recently gotten to know one another."

"It's fine," Hailey gave an honest and quick reply. "It's a complicated mess. But you've probably already heard most of it from her."

"I only learned a few years ago that I might actually some some artistic ability," Abigail said, entering the room with a plate of pancakes. She set the plate down and Hailey followed her to the kitchen to help with the other things.

"Hailey, I need you to come with me on a little trip as soon as you can." Abigail said quickly and quietly, as soon as the two were alone in the kitchen. "I don't want George to find out about this, but I have something important to show you."

Hailey put down the plate of buttered slices of toast she'd picked up. She looked up in startled and shocked surprise at her mother's urgent yet excited tone of voice. At the same time she felt concern and confusion, and she voiced several questions all at once. "Where are we going? How soon do we have to leave? Is it urgent? What is this about? Are you in some sort of trouble? Why don't you want George to find out? I thought couples were supposed to trust each other to understand the truth about anything."

Abigail, laughed a little before she said, "Okay in answer to each of those questions, we need to get to the town of Nissi Estonia. We should leave as soon as we are logically able too, but I know these sort of things can take a while to work out and plan. No, it's not urgent per say, but we really should go when we can. I can't explain what it's about just yet. You'll see when we get to where we're going, why I so hoped make the trip. Sorry, Hailey, what were the other questions?"

"Are you in some sort of trouble?"

"No, no of course not."

"Why don't you want George to find out? Surely a couple that loves each other should be honest about everything they want to do. Isn't it a matter of trusting... wait... you want to go all the way to Estonia?"

"Yes."

"Mum," Hailey said, with disbelief clear on her face, "Estonia is nearly right across Europe. I don't mean to sound doubtful here but are you sure you're thinking of the right place."

"Positive," Abigail replied with confidence, and Hailey raised an eyebrow in confusion bordering on dread at what was unfolding before her.

"That's a very long way to travel."

"Says someone who's been to the furthest corners of the universe," Abigail laughed.

"I hoped the Doctor might fly us over," she continued as Hailey chuckled at her unarguable logic. "In a way this concerns him too."

The conversation was dropped as the two returned to the dinning room, and sat down on rustic looking wooden chairs.

They chatted with one another about the upcoming wedding and how Abigail wished to hold the reception at the village hall. George asked Hailey what her life had been like like she was separated from her mother as a very small child. She explained some of the small and vague details o her life, shuffling from children's home to children's home, and her unluckiness of finding herself moved from the good ones quickly and seemingly most often made to remain in the worst of them for longer. George talked a little about his accounting practice and Abigail expressed her relief at being out of the hospital for good.

"There's an art show coming to town next month," George said after a short break in the conversation. "Hailey, I'm sure you'd live to go with us, if you're around at that time."

"I'll do my best to be back for that," Hailey replied. "It'd be fun to go with you both and I love going to art exhibits."

"It's been so great to meet you, Hailey," George told her later on as she stood in the doorway of his house. He looked around to see that Abigail was nowhere in sight and took that opportunity to say something a little more personal. "So, I'm not exactly sure how this is supposed to work from here. I'm marrying your mother this coming winter, and I suppose that will make you my step daughter. I've never been a step parent to anyone before, and you're already an independent adult."

"I don't think there's anything to do really," Hailey supplied her bit of advice. "I mean how does one learn to parent an adult who is not even living in the house. Lets just be civil to each other."

"I can do that."

"Good to hear. I can too."

"I'm excited for you to meet my daughter, " George said casually then. "Perhaps I should try to bring her to that art show with us. It would obviously be nice for you to meet before the wedding."

Hailey looked at him blankly for a moment before replying with, "You have a daughter? Does my mother know that?"

"Of course she knows that." George laughed a little. "Melissa's been out here a couple times while Abigail was here. She's even come with me once to the hospital to visit your mother. She never wanted to visit there again though. She gets along with Abigail, but really doesn't like being in the institution."

George stepped out the door behind Hailey saying, "I'll walk you back to the ship, wherever it's hidden. " He looked around intently in as far as he could see, "It's got to be around here somewhere," he mused.

"How old is your daughter?" Hailey questioned as the two of them crossed the road.

"She just had her thirteenth birthday a couple weeks ago. She lives a few hours from here and comes out to spend weekends here once in a while."

"And Mum is really okay with that?"

"Of course. Those two get along fine, and it's not like Melissa is here all the time."

George looked over to his left, and gestured toward the police placed along the roadside near am open field and in front of a fence. "There is it. I know it'd be here somewhere near by. I suppose you'd best be off then."

"Wait... how did you anything about the police box disguise. The TARDIS is very hard to spot because of that form. How'd you know?"

"Well..."

"And don't tell me Mum told you. I don't think she'd do that."

"Your Mum didn't say anything about that. She only told me about about her relationship with a Time Lord years ago and a little about having traveled in time herself."

"So how did you know...?"

"Interesting story there," George said. "And perhaps I'll tell it someday."

Shaking her head a little and laughing under her breath as she reached the ship a step or two in front of her mother's husband to be, she turned to thank him for the breakfast invitation. He knew of course, more than anyone should typically have known, and he was being suspiciously vague as to how he had acquired that information. Hailey knew that that fact along should have been enough to greatly concern her, but when she added to consideration the fact that George had apparently so quickly accepted the truth of her father's origins. Strangely however, though she really couldn't explain her feelings and her confidence, she knew that George was someone she could trust with knowledge of things beyond earth.

The Doctor and Rose were talking intently with one another in the console room, when she boarded the ship. They were so busy looking at each other with unbroken gazes as they listened and talked, that it wasn't until she accidently let the light wind push the door shut with a slight slam, that either noticed her at all. With a smile and a little laugh she waved at her friends as she walked past them and headed for the hallway leading to her room. She retreated to her room and spent the afternoon happily alone painting for a good while, and then working her way trough reading the final chapter of her current textbook.

The lessons and concepts were getting harder and harder by that time. Hailey, who had known full well it wouldn't stay as easy as it had been forever, found herself so challenged by her current coursework that she worried she'd fall behind and then finally become unable to go on with it entirely. She understood that her time of what could only compare to graduation for the Gallifrain academy was still at her current pace and based on her current and very much altered course load, many long years away. Typically an academy student would have spent nearly ninety years of their life in school. Much to that time was spent learning the things that were for the most part to be omitted from her lessons due to irrelevancy. Still, even covering only basics and still relevant things that could still matter after the destruction of her father's home world, she knew she'd remain a student for the next ten or fifteen years.

Hailey blinked her eyes and then blinked them again, before she returned to staring in disbelief at a highly complex mathematics problem on the page in front of her. She shook her head in bewilderment and then finally in frustration at finding herself completely unable to even begin to figure out how to solve the problem, she closed the book.

It was late that evening that she found herself talking with the Doctor again. Bored of her work alone in her room, though she also had to admit she liked the time she'd been spending alone as of late, she found him in the console room making a few simple repairs again. Rose, she understood, must have gone off the bed early because the place was dimply lit and quiet. The Doctor looked at her for a second as she entered the room and took a seat off to the side and out of the way and sat with her legs folded under her in the seat. He promptly went back to his work, reprogramming the computer after seeing that she looked fine and clearly had not come out there after having had another possibly frightening experience.

"Doctor, can we take my mother with us for a little while?" Hailey questioned uncertainly. The Doctor looked back over toward her again, with his eyes wide in disbelief and surprise at the randomness of such a question. His expression turned to one of clearly not at all serious disgust and disappointment at the idea.

"I don't want to travel with someone's mother!" he exclaimed. Her laughed and smiled at her, before going on. "I have a universal reputation to uphold you know. I can't just go traveling around with companions and their mothers!"

Hailey gave a laugh of her own as she explained, "I only mean to take her with us on a brief errand to eastern Europe. She says she has something she really needs to show me... or us. Believe me, traveling the universe with my mother would be the last thing I'd call a good idea."

With a curious look, to which Hailey shrugged her shoulders to indicate her cluelessness of her mother's intent, the Doctor said he would be glad to fly them across the continent, as soon as everyone was ready to leave and Hailey had gone to fetch Abigail.

"How are you doing with your studies?" the Doctor questioned. He walked over to sit with her and Hailey had to admit to herself that she dreaded having to give an answer. He looked at her though with an almost unbroken stare, waiting for a reply.

"Not so great now," she reluctantly answered. "I had to give up earlier on a problem because I couldn't figure it out after a long time to reading it and reading it again. I was even more stuck with the next one. It seems hopeless now."

"You look upset," the Doctor observed out loud, noting the expression on her face.

"I sort of am."

"Why?"

Hailey thought for a moment and then decided to give an honest answer, instead of dodging the question and changing the subject. "I used to do so well with the course work from the books. I suppose I'm just getting worried now because it seems to get harder and harder. I've never been bad at school before. I was always the smartest in any class I was in, and while at the time I used to find it annoying ant time, I guess now I'm just not used to feeling dumb."

"You aren't dumb."

"Well I know that. But it feels like I am suddenly. My IQ is about 157. How can I be terrible at school?"

"You may be smart for a human," the doctor said," and you are. You've always been beyond brilliant, as far as I know. But by Gallifrain standards you are of perfectly average intelligence."

Hailey looked at him with her eyes fill of realization. "So if things had been different and I'd been among our people, I might have been just another student among many. Nothing special about me and nothing to write home about?"

"Perhaps not. You'd have likely been just like the rest. Better in some things than others. Struggling along, and just praying you can pass your exams every year in order to save your own sanity."

"I was doing so well at it before," Hailey observed. "It started to get a bit harder and harder, but I always did okay and it's been at least five months now."

"Well that's mostly because you started out with studied normally given to seven year olds and went up from there. You've caught up now to where you should be, and of course it's a challenge at this point."

"So I'm at the point that someone should be about about twenty years old?"

"More like that of the average Gallifrain thirteen year old." The Doctor laughed with what he quickly realized was not as humorous a situation as he'd thought in the previous moment. Hailey let her head fall into her hands in hopeless frustration.

After a couple of silent minutes Hailey just got up again and walked purposefully toward the door leading back to the hallway through which she'd come.


	20. Chapter 20

When the TARDIS materialized on a small farm in eastern Europe, the Doctor walked off with his usual level of confidant caution. Rose, Hailey, and Abigail quickly followed. Abigail, clearly remembered the place, and had obviously seen it before. The Doctor looked around him in as many directions as he could see without turning fully around. He studied the feeling of the air for a second and found himself confidant that they were indeed in the place he'd intended to land. All four just stood for a moment thinking their own idle thoughts and taking in the country air, when the sight of someone coming over a hill on foot caught the attention of all of them in nearly the same instant.

Rose and Hailey, mostly out of learned instinct and little else, looked with both worry and curiosity at the approaching figure. The Doctor stepped forward, ready to greet whoever it was that was coming toward them and explain himself, but Abigail stepped ahead of him with a bright smile of obvious recognition on her face. The approaching figure was now close enough that they could clearly recognize her as a small blond haired woman of about thirty, wearing casual clothing and a pair of slip on shoes.

"Anna!" Abigail exclaimed with excitement. "I can't tell you how happy I am that you still live out here."

Anna smiled a greeting at the rest of the group, and nodded politely to each as Abigail introduced them each in turn. She looked at the TARDIS with a strange expression on her face and the look in her eyes told them all that while it was odd and unexpected to see an antique British police telephone box appear suddenly on her property, such a thing strangely didn't frighten her.

"Anna's father was a good friend of my late husband," Abigail explained to the small group. "I'm not sure of the whole story, and I have no idea how they met and why, but her father had been a big help to us several times in various ways in the years before James disappeared."

She turned back to Anna before saying, "you've certainly grown up since I last saw you though." Anna only nodded and laughed.

"She was a child last time James and I were out this way. Not even into her teenage years from what I remember."

"My father is away in the city this weekend," Anna said, in fluent English. "My mother went with him. Your timing was such that you missed them by not even four hours."

Anna turned to the group with a polite smile, before continuing on, "oh well, never mind that. Come inside. I'll put the coffee on and I think there are some fresh made lemon squares in the kitchen."

"My father has been running this farm for years now," Anna explained inside the house, once the group had settled into a leisurely conversation over coffee and squares. "It's been in our family for a hundred years at least. Anyway I help my parents run it now. They are both getting up in years. Abigail, my father's mentioned you a few times in the couple years, wondering if you would ever be back this way. Where is James now? Is he joining us shortly?"

Abigail looked sad for a moment as she realized that this daughter of her late husband's old friend had no idea of James' fate years before.

"James died years ago," she explained slowly, as the Estonian farmer's daughter looked at her with silent comprehension of her words. "Hailey, our daughter, was only about two years old then."

"I am sorry for your bad news," Anna said quietly and Abigail and Hailey both nodded their thanks.

The five of them fell into polite, pleasant, and casual conversation in the small and cluttered but cozy and inviting living room. The chattered on about simple things like the housing market in England, and Anna told them that she'd visited the UK once several years ago shortly after she married her husband, who was currently sleeping upstairs after a night of drinking too much at a friend's bachelor party.

A small blond haired boy of around four years old wandered into the room, rubbing his eyes with his fist. He'd quite clearly just woken from his nap, and upon hearing visitors in the house, had come to see what the excitement was about. He made his way to Anna, who lifted him onto her lap smiling.

"This is my son Alexander," she said to her visitors. From behind a door that until then had gone unnoticed, they could hear the sudden sounds of an infant's cries. Anna put her son down, setting him on his feet on the carpet, before getting to her feet and rushing off to get the baby. She came back carrying a tiny girl in a pink dress, who everyone of course smiled at.

"Do you have anymore children hiding in there anywhere?" Abigail asked, with a happy laugh. Anna shook her head.

"No," she said. "Not any of mine anyway. I have only these two thank goodness. The young son of my husband's brother lives here though as well. He and his parents use the bedrooms upstairs. Then there is my mother's boarder in the basement with her boyfriend, and my father's sister who came to stay last month and so far is still living here. Only three children though in all."

Hailey's eyes went wide as the young lady listed off the residents her home. "Anna, how many people live here in total. I think we must've all lost count!"

"Too many I say," Anna exclaimed laughing.

A boy who looked to be around seven years old ran into the room and moved to dive under an end table, knocking over a lamp in the process. His eyes shut tightly for a moment in horror as he realized he could not catch the lamp in time to stop it from falling. It hit the floor and despite it landing on a good thick carpet, the exposed light bulb still shattered. Alexander shrieked in mock terror at the sound of breaking glass, but Anna, holding a bottle in her daughter's mouth, could do little at the moment about the broken glass. The older child followed through with his previous course of action and dove under the table, while Rose took the trouble of dealing with the lamp.

A young woman stomped into the room, yanked the boy out from under the tale, stood him on his feet, and smacked him once across the backside. She apologized to Anna several times for her son's carelessness in having broken the lamp, while the boy stood in the middle of the room sulking over the spanking he'd very likely been running to avoid in the first place. Alexander ran to talk with him though and soon the two boys were rushing around the outer edges of the living room pretending to drive racing cars, as they imitated engine sounds. Someone must have let their large dog into the house because it too soon joined in the sudden outset of chaos, barking loudly as it playfully chased both boys. Anna put the baby down into the floor. She crawled away in the split second that she was unwatched and promptly succeeded in knocked over a dish of wrapped sweets that was on top of the coffee table. A man that the guests could only presume must have been Anna's husband, came down the stairs grumbling about the noise.

It was in the midst of all that fast growing chaos and noise, that Hailey slipped for the most part unnoticed from the small house. Leaving the others to socialize, and content to wait for her mother to reveal to her the reason for the trip, she shut the door quietly behind her and sat down on the wooden steps the lead up to the front door. She could hear the laughter of those inside the house and she only smiled slightly to herself, happy to leave them to their fun, but not interested at that moment in rejoining the group. The Doctor found her at least half an hour later still sitting on the front step and lost in her thoughts. He sat beside her and waited several long seconds until she looked up at him. She smiled and nodded a greeting to him, but it was clear she was so greatly bothered by something.

"My mother's got friends out here it would seem," she observed quietly. "And it looks like Rose has hit it off with those people too."

"You don't much like them?"

"Sure I do. Well I don't really know them and we haven't talked much, but no reason I can see not to like them."

"What are you doing out here all alone anyway? Wouldn't you like to go into the house and talk with that family of your parents old friend?"

"I'll go back inside in a bit," Hailey answered. "I'm just thinking over some math problems from my lessons."

The Doctor was about to laugh again at her devotion to school, which far exceeded any he'd ever had shown in his younger days. He stopped himself however when he saw from the look on her face that she was still upset about the matter of starting to fall behind.

"I'm not used to being average," Hailey said, speaking before he asked her too, when she saw him staring intently at her. "As a child I used to sometimes hate being the smartest one in every class. In high school I used to play dumb in order to be more like others, and I was still too smart to be like them. I lived in a children's home and it seems that in there the last thing you want to be a genius, with a 157 IQ. It was just another reason for the bigger and stronger girls to push me around. Suddenly though, for the first time ever I'm struggling with education, and I realize I'm just not used to struggling with such things." She looked down at the ground again and said hopelessly. "I used to get barely passing grades on purpose, but this is the first time I've ever felt like I'm in danger of such a low grade for real."

"You don't have to be great at those lessons," the Doctor replied casually but all the while making sure to let his consideration show clearly. "The idea is simply to pass."

"Am I still passing?" Hailey looked at him with dread filling her face as she awaited his answer.

"Yes."

"How far am I from barely making it?"

"Well," the Doctor explained, " Academy standards have always required at least sixty five percent overall grades in a year in order to pass all classes. Your overall average last time I got a chance to work that out was eighty two."

"Eighty two," Hailey cried in shocked disgust. "That's awful! And the rate I'm finding myself in trouble with it, it's bound to just keep dropping."

"Hey, I think I must have stayed at roughly sixty seven percent from about my third year on. Barely passed in the final year and that was after I'd already failed the first time. As long as you can stay above sixty five, you're fine."

"Did anyone ever really stay in the top ranks grade wise? I mean, was it actually possible for a student to hold say a ninety five percent average?"

"Well sure. There were a few in my school years that did it," the Doctor answered. He looked out over the farm with a wistful expression of remembrance on his face. "Those were some of the most brilliant young people the universe had even known. They would so likely have scared most humans if they'd ever made it this far out in time and space, just because no human being is anywhere near able to understand such minds. I had one of these students as a math tutor once many years ago. Forget what a human would have thought. She nearly scared me! She was only the Time Lord equivalent of a teenage human at that time, too."

"Am I just being hard on myself, Doctor?"

"Honest answer? Yes you are."

"I'm just not used to low grades like this," Hailey said thoughtfully. "I know eighty two isn't even that low, but for me it seems it is. I worry about failing. I've never failed a single class in my life."

"Hailey. You grew up on Earth, among humans in Earth's public school system. You are in a whole new league now. This is at a whole new level for you. It was never supposed to be easy for anyone. In all honesty, completing even as much as you are capable of will be the hardest thing you've ever tried to do."

"So, what should I do?"

"Well you love gathering knowledge, right?" When Hailey nodded with enthusiasm at that last question, the doctor continued one speaking. "Well then just keep on learning and don't worry about grades at all. I'm not sure there's even a point in a grading system. There are no other students to compare against in the first place."

The door behind them opened suddenly and out of the house stepped Rose and Abigail, along with Anna.

"There you two are," Abigail exclaimed happily. "I've explained to Anna why we came out here, and soon I'll explain it to you. Come on. We have something to show you."

The five of them walked at a leisurely pace across the rolling fields of the farm. Anna went ahead, knowing exactly where she was going. Rose and the Doctor followed close behind her, holding onto each other's hands, and swinging their arms into the air laughing. Hailey giggled at their childlike action as she walked with her mother.

"So what is it you led us all this way to show me anyway," she questioned hopefully. Abigail only shook her head.

"You'll see in a few minutes," she said.

"Oh, why can't you just tell me? We're already out here."

"I could. But I don't want to. I want you to see it for the first time having no idea what you're expecting to find. Your father would have loved to leave you with that element of surprise"

"Does this has anything to do with my father?"

"Yes."

"What does it have to do with him?"

"Not telling you that either."

"Oh come on... why not?"

"Because that would probably give most of it away."

Hailey looked toward the Doctor with a grin across her face, clearly hoping that he might give her a hint as to what her mother was still so intent on hiding from her. He only shrugged his shoulders and gave a confused look.

"She didn't tell me a thing either," he said.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

Hailey was enjoying her little game of trying to find out what her mother's big secret was, in much the same way a small child might try to unveil hints of her already wrapped gifts at Christmas time. The quest for hints of secret surprises reminded her of a happy piece of childhood that she'd for the most part missed out on. Her two friends and her mother all laughed and smiled, in full understanding of that. Their laughter made Anna, who was still walking in front of them, laugh too.

They came to an old and long unused, rickety wooden barn. The faded paint had clearly once been a bright red color, and in it's present state, the wide wooden door leaned in slightly on impossibly old hinges. Anna took a key from the pocket of her jeans and fitted it into the padlock that held the the double doors shut with a wooden bar.

"My father will be so glad you came back at least to deal with this," she said to Abigail. "The county office is after us to knock this old barn down. We have a new one of course nearer to the house and they see no reason to keep this old one up."

Abigail looked at Hailey with an expression that invited and demanded her complete attention.

"Before your father left for the war, he received a few days notice of the council representatives from his home world on their way to earth to collect him for service. He insisted we had to come out here to hide something of great importance. Something that was better off in a secluded area no one would automatically think of looking for it. He had a good friend out here; Anna's father, who thankfully was more than happy to let us leave it out here."

She explained things at rapid spoken pace as Anna pulled open the heavy and rickety door. The wood and hinges creaked and groaned under the force of her pulling them open. She went on speaking as all four followed the Estonian farmer's daughter into the dusty old and dimly lit barn. "I don't exactly know what your father would have done, or if now's the right time to do anything at all, but it's not safe to leave it here for much longer. Your father guessed before he left that you might one day learn who you are. He said that if you ever did and only then, must I promise I'd show this to you."

Hailey followed her mother into the barn in front of Rose and the Doctor. Her eyes were open wide as she looked around with anticipation. She knew this was the unveiling of a huge secret that could change so much of her life. She was as scared now as she was excited, but she hoped that would not show as she let her eyes wander ideally to the broken window high over her head, through which a stream of bright sunlight poured in.

The inside of the barn was little to speak of really. A few old and dyed out bales of hay and straw were stacked along one wall, and a thin layer of dry grain and dust lay scattered over the floor. A rusted pitchfork leaned against a work bench built of splintered plywood and a gas powered lawn mower rested nearby, next to a jug once used to store gasoline. Hailey attention went to an antique American car that sat parked under the window on the far side of the barn. She was not a car buff by any means but thought she recognized it as a Ford of some sort, built sometime in the nineteen forties. The car, which the years had clearly turned to a mix of fading green paint and rust, had a strange beauty to it, and she wondered why she'd never before taken a single thread of interest in automobiles of days long past.

In a single moment she both realized that the car had distracted from entirely from her mother's very important surprise for her and that her mother was in fact walking purposefully toward the car herself. Hailey stood staring wide eyed at the car and her mother, before her gaze wandered to a clueless Doctor and Rose and back again. Abigail looked intently at the car with wonder and recognition in her eyes.

"It changed it's disguise since I last saw it," she said quietly, speaking mostly to herself out loud. "It must have blended itself in the best way it could."

She looked at Hailey, and continued on, now speaking right to her. "It's in power down mode now. It powered down after we left it out here. Your father told me it would do that. It's alive and well, but it's just been sort of sleeping for almost eighteen years."

"Wha..." Hailey gasped under her breath, unable to even form a word properly. She formed the understanding in her mind of what exactly it was that she was looking at, but still she could barely believe it.

"How is this possible," the Doctor muttered to himself behind her. "Mine is the last of it's kind. I was so sure..."

"Hailey!" Abigail said suddenly, forcing her from her shock. "I can't even tell from the look on your face whether you understand all this, or if you're still completely confused." She stepped over to the other side of the barn, pulled up a loose section of the wooden floor and from a tiny hidden compartment beneath it, she took a small metal key. She rushed back to put the key into her daughters unmoving hand, as the girl continued to stare ahead in disbelief.

"It's..." Hailey said, finally finding her voice once again. She looked down at the key she held tightly in her hand, and then back up toward the rusted old car. "It's my father's TARDIS. But why is it here? I didn't know Dad left it on Earth."

**And I think I'll end it here for now... on another cliff hanger! Hopefully I'll have more written in a few days.**


	21. Chapter 21

Hailey stared unmoving at the machine. She half expected that it would do something to show some sign of intelligence, and at the same time expected that it would do nothing of the sort. She wondered silently what exactly it was the she was expecting, and realized with growing despair that she had no idea exactly what it was that she was supposed to do.

She looked slowly around at the other's and saw that each had their own varied thoughts and expectations. Standing nearest to her, her mother stood with a look of anticipation at seeing the doors of the old time ship opened again. Clearly she wanted it to be her daughter that first opened the door and she stood anxiously waiting for her to do so. Anna, who had until them stayed in the doorway of the barn, quite clearly hadn't had a very good idea at all of what was hidden inside, because she inched closer in curiosity now, but looked outright nervous at learning more about the thing. Rose's eyes were open wide in surprise and confusion, as she herself took in the whole scene in confused wonder. As far as Hailey could tell from watching the Doctor's reaction for a moment, he was only waiting in his own state of utter shock to see what exactly she would do.

The thought crossed her mind for a second of handing the key to him and entrusting him with the task of first dealing with the doors of the machine. He after all was the only one that had any true experience with such a thing, and she certainly trusted him more than herself. Her mother though obviously wanted her to do it, and anyway he was so distracted she didn't think she could get his attention easily to hand him the key.

Slowly Hailey reached forward, fully intending to fit the small metal key into the door lock in the way one would unlock a car door. She pulled her hand back startled as her fingers encountered a slightly tangible forcefield. The feeling of slight, almost electrical vibration made her nearly drop the key. The others all just looked at her with questioning expressions for a moment.

Abigail took a couple of steps forward and much to the dismay of the others, she spoke as though the machine could hear her. "Hello again, girl. James is long dead, but you must already know that. Hailey is grown up now. Everything is different, but at the same time, everything can in it's own way begin again."

Hailey tried again to reach for the door lock and this time her hand passed through to it with no trouble.

"Doctor?" Rose whispered. She tugged lightly on the sleave of his coat to get his attention. "Can it really understand her? Can a TARDIS understand so many spoken words like that?"

"I don't know," he answered slowly, still staring ahead in shocked surprise and confusion. "I've never tired such a thing with mine. It seems though... I think it was protecting itself."

The driver side door unlocked and Hailey pulled it open with little trouble but some personal hesitation. She had to admit to her self that among so many other things, she was curious about how the infinitely bigger on the inside than on the outside concept would work with an automobile. She was used to walking in and out of something that could basically be thought of as a slightly oversized phone-booth. But this was a completely different shape, and that confused her. She peeked slowly past the now open green door, and blinked at the disoriented feeling she experienced at first.

The front of the vehicle looked just like one might expect to find in an ordinary car, but behind the front seat there seemed an infinite space in which she could vaguely make out a curving stairway leading upward and a hallway moving far to the left.

As soon as she backed up again and stood upright staring again at the machine with an instinctive sense of confusion she could still not shake even after months of traveling in a multi-dimensional time machine, the TARDIS' exterior disguise shifted rapidly. The Doctor's was of course, always in the shape of an old blue police box, and so she'd never seen such a thing change forms before. She, along with the other four in the barn, gasped in surprise as the thing switched in a split second into a small white tool shed with a simple green door.

"Wh..." Anna gasped from behind the rest. "Why'd it do that? ... how did it do that?"

"It was in a good shape to blend in hidden in a barn but not very practical for walking in and out of," the Doctor explained. He seemed more himself now and clearly over the initial shock and typically anxious to explore. "All aboard then. I suppose we will all want to see what sort of state this one is in."

"Is... is it safe in there?" Anna questioned shakily.

"Of course it's safe," the Doctor answered. The five people filed on board the time ship, one at time with Hailey in front and Anna lagging behind with the greatest hesitation.

Hailey looked around the console room of the ship. It looked so different from that of the Doctor's TARDIS but still very recognizable as having the same origin. The center console was a bright silver color with various green buttons, dials, and switches everywhere on it's rounded and flat surface. The wall farthest from the door was lined with monitors and their corresponding controls. The room contained a few padded green chairs and the room was lit dimly from overhead. Despite it's having sat for eighteen years undisturbed, everything was clean and free of dust.

Anna, openly frightened by the size of the machine inside and the lack of understand of how such a thing was possible, hurried out the door and back into the familiar of her world, muttering about how she really had to get supper started right away. After reassurance that she was indeed alright and would meet up with them later back at the house, Hailey, her mother Rose and the Doctor went about the task of looking over parts of the old time ship.

Abigail had traveled years before with her husband on board that ship, and she recalled more and more of where things where and what they might do, as she wandered about. Rose was happy just to have a new kind of adventure and she walked about with the others silently comparing the ship to the Doctor's, and noticing more differences than she'd imagined might have existed between different ships of the same type.

It was while she was standing in a wide and curving hallway that Hailey burst into sudden tears and hid her face in her hands, trying futilely to hide her seemingly senseless crying. Abigail noticed it first and hurried over, crossing the hallway quickly.

"I remember being very young, not even two years old and wandering around in endless space within my father's little garden shed," Hailey explained slowly. "It should have seemed impossible but at that age I didn't even question it. I thought I was insane for years afterwards, when everyone started to say there were no such thing as 'magic boxes' that are bigger on the inside and can fly. By the time I was five I just stopped trying to tell anyone at all about it, and then finally I believed them when they said they thought I might be inventing such things in my own mind to protect myself from a reality a young mind couldn't accept."

The others listened quietly and with understanding as she continued speaking, now not quite as emotionally, and with more matter of fact acceptance. "Of course I knew since meeting the Doctor and Rose, that such a thing could well have actually been real and possible after all, but the memories from so early in life were so vague and nearly forgotten. Now though, I can see that my father's ship is exactly the way I remembered it for a few years until the world made me forget."

"Mum," Hailey said after they had all walked silently for a moment or two investigating a few of the hallways and then doubling back toward the console room. "That time in my life, the very early years of my childhood are so fuzzy and mixed up now. It's hard to recall being so young, even for me. I thought though I that could sort of remember living in a little townhouse on a quiet street near the top of a hill. Did we really live there or am I just all confused?"

"We lived in that house since a few months before you were born," Abigail explained. She laughed a little at a long forgotten and suddenly recalled memory of her own. "We moved into that place while I was pregnant.. We'd been in my flat until then, but it was so small and a baby would have just made it seem more cluttered in there. One day your father came home and found me and a friend painting the smaller of the bedrooms upstairs pastel yellow . He looked at us like we were crazy and then finally asked me after my friend left, why I would want to paint walls yellow. I explained that the walls were yellow because I didn't know whether pink or blue was in order, and yellow made a good choice as a gender neutral color. He looked at me like I was just as crazy even then and walked off questioning to himself why a baby should care what color the walls are. It was so easy at times to forget he wasn't human, but at such times the fact kind of smacked me in the head full force."

"Why did you live in a house at all?" Hailey questioned. "Why not just live on board the ship. It's quite possible to live on board."

"Very possible," Abigail replied. "He wanted to live a closer to typical human life though... most of the time anyway. He never came to Earth seeking adventures and excitement. He simply crashed here and by the time he got the ship fixed, he'd met me and we loved each other. Leaving was never an option anymore but settling here was."

"Nothing like the Doctor then," Hailey observed, with a laugh. "I wonder if he will ever stop running."

"Not as long as I can help it," the Doctor said in a tone of amusement. He was more seriously though as he put in, "Actually though, for him to want to stay somewhere safe and predictable would not have been so strange. Some of us never left home at all - never saw a thing beyond our home city, let alone went off world. There were always a few who due to their professions, had to leave and travel far away, but most of them hurried back as fast as they could. I think many were actually afraid of what might be out there."

The group quiet reluctantly made their way back off the ship and out into the barn, which though no one voiced their opinion, everyone thought to be a vivid contrast from the bright lights and technology on board. All four of them stood looking at the strangely machine for a few short moments before Hailey voiced the question she knew someone had to ask eventually.

"So, Mum you say it's not safe to leave Dad's TARDIS out here for much longe, and I see your point on that. But what on Earth do we do with it now? Where are we supposed to hide something like this?"

"It won't necessarily need to be hidden anywhere - well not for another long term period like this anyway. She's a great old machine but needs to be useful for something other than just sitting in hiding forever on Earth. She needs a Time Lord to fly her again." Abigail stopped speaking for a second and looked around with bemusement on her face. "...Or in your case, would the correct term be Time lady?"

"Time Lady is very informal," the Doctor said, when Hailey looked at him questioningly. "You could say it that way in most casual situations if you wanted. Many do... or did." He stopping speaking suddenly and looked right at Abigail with a look of surprise on his face.

"No way" he said firmly. "Hailey would never be able to fly her father's ship."

"You could teach her to fly it," Abigail insisted stubbornly.

The Doctor, caught up in his own stubbornness, shook his head repeatedly and held one hand up in the air. "No, bad idea. Very bad idea."

"Doctor, before he left for the war, when we came out here to hide his TARDIS in a safe place, James told me one of his biggest regrets was that he would never be able to teach her himself. He thought she could do it one day, if only she could..."

"Well parents tend to have a certain way of becoming completely convinced their child is capable of anything," the Doctor said, with bitterness plainly apparent in his voice.

"Doctor?" Rose questioned, interrupting him and this line of thought out of concern. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter? why would anything be wrong?"

"I dunno, you just sound... just not very..."

"Rose, can we just drop it," the Doctor said with far more sudden and snappy anger than he'd intended express.

"Sorry," he said, forcing his mounting frustration out of mind and admitting to himself that he didn't even understand fully why he was frustrated or why he was taking it out on a companion who had done nothing at all. "I'll think all this over and decide what to do."

No one objected or questioned him, when he reached around the open door of the TARDIS and carefully removed a small panel that they would have otherwise never known was there at all. He pressed a little red button that was reviled underneath and then just as carefully he placed the panel back into it's place on the section of the wall, and let it click into place. Rose, Hailey and Abigail stood in stunned silence as the machine, with it's door still open appeared to shift itself into fully third dimensional form. In the time it took to blink their eyes, the impossibly vast interior structure, which seconds before had been partly visible through the open door, vanished. In it's place were four flat walls only a few meters wide by a few meters across and the hight of a typical small structure. The complex and impossible time ship had become for all intents and purposes, by all appearances, a typical garden shed.

The Doctor walked quickly toward the barn door and it was only as he was about to step outside, that Hailey dared to question him.

"Doctor, where are you going now? What are you planning to do?"

He looked back at her grinning. All signs of the frustration and completely uncalled for abruptness of moments before were gone.

"I'm going to bring my TARDIS over here, and materialize around this one. This one's been deactivated, so storing it in there is completely possible. We can put it in a big storage room downstairs and take it with us." With that quick and excitable explanation the Doctor ran out through the open barn door.

"I'm confused," Rose admitted, speaking quickly.

"Hailey can explain it," the Doctor called back as he stepped outside. "She understands all this science too."

~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~

Hailey sat with her mother at a little cafe in what she'd come to refer to simply as 'the village.' The little place had become quite familiar to her, and she was glad that it had. She enjoyed the coziness of the little cafe.

"So what do you think?" Abigail asked from across the table, and over top of the cup of hot coffee she held in her hand.

"I don't want to insult anyone here, but so far I think George's daughter is positively dreadful. George said Melissa was excited to meet me, but still..."

"You think Melissa is dreadful?" Abigail set the cup down and looked at her daughter with surprise. "How so? I've always thought she was a decent girl in the time I've known her."

"She just seemed to me to have this hidden and underhanded way of insulting everyone. She managed in a single five minute period to tell me that her father was 'only' an accountant, while her mother and step father are both pediatricians in their own private practice together - and also that I should be sad because my own mother went crazy instead of raising me. She laughed like she was joking when she said that, but come on... She even complained about how the museum was not a 'proper' museum and that her community has a nicer one."

"She's still getting used to the idea of her father getting married. Hailey, she's only thirteen and still at the age she's be unsure of what to think of much of anything. Melissa's just acting out a bit to test all of our reactions."

Hailey stirred sugar and cream into her coffee and then looked at her mother with a spoon hanging loosely in her hand and a look of bewilderment on her face. Her pushed a strand of her hair - very recently dyed back to it's natural black and highlighted with bright purple - out of her eyes and blinked a time or two. "Mum, are you seriously not bothered by this? That was a nasty thing she said about you."

Abigail answered back distractedly. "Yes, I suppose it was a bit nasty. But in her mind she probably thought she was only being honest. I was in a mental hospital for eighteen years, and I was honest with her about that since we met."

"Yes but..."

"Sure it was a bit insensitive of her to be so blunt about that and the emotions related to it, but she's so young. I can't remember if at thirteen I had a sense of tactfulness either."

"I remember I certainly did," Hailey answered firmly, refusing to give in.

"Sorry," she said after another minute. "I should mind my own business and not judge so much. I'm just concerned about trouble starting up in the family after you and George get married."

"Even if you're right about possible trouble, it's not like she lives in the house. It's just me and George there most of the time. Things will be fine. A nice and simple, uncomplicated life; that's what we want and what are intent on having."

"And I'm happy you'll get to have that."

"Are you really though?" Abigail questioned in all seriousness. She looked at her daughter with a steady and almost unblinking gaze for a moment.

"I am," Hailey said seriously. She thought for a minute determined to find the right words, and then she went on speaking. In a way, or I suppose I should say in a few ways, I'm a bit resentful of the fact that you got out of the institution only after I was already all grown up. I would have loved to have gotten to be more like a proper daughter to you and have you as a real mother, before you went off and found this new life. I would have loved to have been the daughter that grew up in your house and now found myself calling George someone who was about to become family. I'd even have liked to think of Melissa as my soon to be step sister. But the truth is, and I'm sure you must already know this, I can still barely see you as actual family to me yet."

"Hailey, I'm trying hard," Abigail answered looking out the window next to their table, with sadness and a world of regrets evident in her eyes. "I am really am trying."

"I know you are." Hailey smiled and spoke lightly. "It'll just take time is all. I may be your daughter but we still hardly know each other at all."

"I'm so confused too so often as to what my role is supposed to be. You were not only already grown up when we met again, but the life you were already living was so different than the one I thought you'd have. I used to think about you so often in the hospital, but whenever I did I thought you'd be on the way to a typical human life in a typical human town somewhere - perhaps an advanced level student that started university early. I always knew you had the brains to be anything in life. You could have had any job you wanted, even at your young age. I never knew the type of terrible placed you went to live in. I'd assumed you must have been adopted at some point and had a loving family. I never dreamed you'd ever learn who or what you really were in any case. I thought that if you even looked for me one day I might tell you your father was from a far off planet, and you'd walk off then thinking you knew why I was in the nut house in the first place."

"Funny isn't it, how life turns out so unlike anything we'd even imagine?"

"Yeah."

"Your role though..." Hailey said, in reference tot he first line of her mother's long and scattered train of verbally expressed thoughts. "Well your in my life is to be my Mum of course."

"I'm not sure I have any idea at all how to be your mother. I've never been there for most of your childhood and now I'm not sure if I'm supposed to try to be parent to you or just a good friend."

"Mum, from what I know about people, most mothers tend to be a little of both when their daughter are out on their own. Besides, I'm not that old. Maybe I still need a parent sometimes."

The two woman sat in the quiet and nearly empty cafe and finished their coffee in happy and peaceful silence. Neither had much to say at that moment, but neither felt much need to speak to the other. Abigail reached over the table to pull a few strands of her Hailey's hair between her fingers gently. She shook her head and laughed light heartedly at the fact that fact that her daughter had gone from one outrageously unnatural hair color to another that was just as shocking. Abigail finally spoke again, questioning to herself out loud as her where Hailey's passion for bright and outrageously colorful fashion had come from. As far as she knew she could think of no one in her family that liked anything but simple and well coordinated colors in their clothing and neutral off whites and beiges in their home decor. She was pretty sure as well that the sense of color had not come from her father's side and she said so.

"It was your father's great grandmother that loved color," Hailey said with a calm matter of factness, that shocked her mother. Abigail sat for a second blinking at her in confusion.

"Your great- great grandmother would have died long before I was born. Your grandfather barely remembered her at all. I think she died when he was thirteen."

"So," Hailey laughed. "She still loved bright colors when she was alive."

"Yes that might be true. I actually have no idea. But how did you..."

"I was able to look through past actually timeliness, with the idea of finding such a person, in mind. For the past, there are what we might refer to as actual time-lines. The future, relative to oneself, is a little more difficult. There is no actually time line yet because there is no set reality. From the future perspective though we would see the many possible outcomes of any event in the present time. I'm still not very good at this though... I'm still learning to scan the time-lines, but I'm happy for the chance to practice."

"You seem just so typical sometimes, just like anyone else's daughter. At times though I'm reminded that you were never supposed to be completely typical."

"Mum?" Hailey asked after the two had make their way out of the cafe. They walked slowly up the street toward the car that George had recently given to Abigail. "In the time years ago that you traveled a bit with Dad did you even make it all the way to his home world?"

The two of them stood next to the red red car as Abigail slowly unlocked the doors. "We wanted to. We always planned to one day. He so wanted me to visit, but he had so many doubts that his family would ever really understand what he was doing bringing his human wife back there with him. It wasn't against the law you see, but it was certainly not encouraged by any means. He was ready one day to say darn it all and we should do it anyway, but around that same time I got pregnant and we stayed home from then on. I wish I'd been able to see his home planet. most of the time I just can hardly believe it's really gone."

Abigail stood next to her car looking over the roof at her daughter and she went on with speaking her thoughts. "How can a whole planet... an entire advanced race, just be gone."

Hailey got into the passenger seat and said, "I feel so sad lately that I'll never see my other home world. I can read about it and see pictures and everything, but that's the closest I'll ever get. Everyone wants to see their homeland. It's in our nature normally to wish to do so. I suppose for me that's just a piece of my own life that I'll never have."

"What exactly happened to Gallifrey anyway?" Abigail questioned. Her eyes were watching the road as she drove through the village and out onto the country road on the way to her home. She watched carefully for places where there might be slippery sections of pavement caused by the light snowfall of the afternoon, but her mind was busy and distracted by other things. "I never did find an opportunity to learn the whole story on that."

Hailey stared out the window into the darkening winter evening. "I only know that the Time war had gone on and on for so long and dragged so many races and worlds into it that it had endangered the entire universe and very reality itself. It's hard to really imagine it, even for myself, but this war wasn't fought with guns and bombs and maybe the odd nuclear attack on a city. This was a war fought in several dimensions at once, in the past and the future and several versions of their present time. Inter-dimensional gateways were opened and controlled and many things that were let through were set loose on whole solar systems. I don't know much about it, but that's what little I could find in the books. Anyway, you can imagine why it had to be stopped before it got so much worse. Both sides though were so angry and full of hate for the other. I suppose many of the Time Lords were changed by war, or at least that's what the Doctor told me once. Common sense, compassion and certainly the whole idea of non-interfearance went right out the window. They would have done anything to destroy some enemy that they say started it. "

"Did they start it?"

"I have no idea who started it. I don't think anyone really knows. You know how it is with conflict. Two sides will blame the other until they are breathless and still no one will claim responsibility. The truth of who started it was lost to many long years of fighting, but finally someone decided they had to end it for the sake of everything that would ever exist. A Time Lord out an end to it by destroying Gallifrey somehow. He managed to time lock the whole war and the planet after that so it would never somehow restart in some insanely complicated way that I can't even begin to understand, once the linear time-line of the past caught up to it."

"Hailey, are you sure that's all true? I mean, the idea of a Time Lord destroying Gallifrey is rather unbelievable. You know how stories go. Over time they just get bigger and bigger and more and more far fetched."

"I'm sure. It does seem a bit crazy, but I'm convinced it's the truth. We have to remember here that they were dealing with circumstances that are beyond any true comprehension for us both."

"And you're pretty sure the Doctor is the last of the Time Lords... well aside from you of course?"

"Yes. As far as we know."

The car followed the smooth paved road as it wound around a hill to the left and down a small slope into a little valley. Hailey watched the country scenery go by. It was the first time she'd traveled that road after sundown and had to admit it was pretty out there at night.

"The one that ended the war stayed outside though," she mused out loud, still watching the view through the car window. "He'd have to. A time lock cannot be set up from inside. Almost like locking a prison call. You can't lock it from the inside of the cell, only from the outside. I suppose the one that did that would have to be out there somewhere too. I've often wondered how the Doctor escaped. It's nice to think that others might have too, in any case. "

Hailey sat in the car thinking intently and for the first time ever, really trying to work out exactly how the final events had unfolded. Exactly who, she wondered, to the point of nearing a momentary feeling of desperation, was this person outside the war who had finally succeeded in ending it. Whoever did it, she knew, would have likely survived and could well have escaped anywhere. Just the fact that this person, who's potential danger was without question, was out there in the universe and probably in possession of advanced time travel technology and scientific equipment scared her for the first time. She had, she realized with a start, been so caught up in the whole adventure of self discovery and exploration, that she missed the matter of a dangerous member of her father's society on the loose in time and space.

For the first time, she thought she understood completely the things the Doctor had explained to her months before, about the balance between the good and bad sides of Time Lord society. For the first time she really understood her her father's people really were capable of the most drastic and terribly frightful acts right along side the good. Their nature was so much like that of humans, yet existed within a far more advanced race of beings. Knowing humans as well as she did, that thought suddenly horrified her.

She reminded herself that she would feel better again once the growing sense of panic and loss of logic passed. She made a mental note to ask the Doctor about a possible survivor when she got back to the ship. Even as she did that however, a horrible sense of realization was forming in her mind before she could even try block it out. The words of the alien creature on the train a long time before spring to mind and its words repeated though her mind relentlessly. She remembered that the thing had accused the Doctor of destroying Gallifrey and she remembered how she'd brushed the whole thing off after a moment of reasoning it out. Her heartbeats increased as the truth hit her full force like a hard blow to the face. There was on other surviver, she knew then. The Doctor had been the one to end the war himself.

She fought back her tears and sat still and determined to hide her sudden reaction from her mother. Though she was suddenly so terrified and furious in equal parts, at the same time, she wanted to deal with the situation herself instead of finding her mother involved. As soon as the car pulled up along the road side, near the house and right next to the place where the TARDIS was parked and waiting, she said a quick and falsely cheerful goodbye and hurried out the passenger side door.

The Doctor and Rose were sitting in the console room laughing and chatting with each other about nothing or much importance when Hailey walked onto the ship. She let the door slam shut behind her and walked quickly up the ramp with such a look of despair, horror and rage on her face, that both stopped in mid-motion and got to their feet full of great concern, and both clueless as to what could possibly have happened.

"Doctor," Hailey said in a whimpering and shaky voice, that she had intended to be one of furious rage instead. "You can't really have been the destroyer of Gallifrey... could you?"

Finally away from her mother and her perceived need to hide her newest understanding she gave in to the flood of unrelenting tears that she'd fought back in the car.


	22. Chapter 22

The Doctor stood frozen in shocked disbelief and horror for a long moment that seemed to go on for hours. He wanted to imagine that the unexpected previous moment had never happened anyplace but in his own mind, after he'd let paranoia of exactly such things get the best of him. Seeing clearly that Hailey was still standing where she'd stopped at the top of the ramp, just barely past the edge of the railing, crying so hard it seemed she may not stop again, while she stood shaking in fright, told him that much to his dismay it was all too real.

He'd planned at first to tell her it had been him that had brought the end of his own world. He'd wanted to be honest and several times he'd looked for the chance to explain at all to her. But soon it seemed that too much time had passed. Hailey had come to trust him more and more and he'd grown more attached to her. His initial near indifference to the thought of her leaving in fear after she if out the truth, had turned to dread at the thought of her running off. He tried hard to convince himself that he planned all along to be honest but he'd never got the right opportunity. Hailey had never asked him directly how Gallifrey was destroyed or who was responsible for it, and nothing had come arisen in conversation to lead him to tell her he had done it.

The Doctor was filled with remorse for his burying of the truth and complete disgust with the fact that he'd so likely driven her to hate him. The regret for the situation though and all the desperation of the moment ceased to be the first and most pressing thing on his mind when he saw Rose storm over and grab Hailey by the front of her top. His eyes shot upward in shock before he run across the room to stop one of his companions from suddenly getting physical with the other.

"What's gotten into you?" Hailey cried, looking at her friend with a tearstained face, while still shaking from fright and disbelief.

"How dare you!" Rose said sharply, her voice a higher pitch than was typical, in her uncharacteristic anger. "How could you accuse the Doctor of such a thing. Of course he's done a few things in life he must regret. Haven't we all? But to think he would destroy a planet... his own..."

"Just let go of me," was all Hailey could say in response. She was in such a state of confusion, she barely knew what to do. She certainly didn't have the will to reason with her furious friend.

"You come in here and start trying to make trouble with your senseless stories and then all you can do is beg to be let go like a terrified six year old," Rose shouted. "My god, you really are screwed up."

"Stop it...please stop it..." Hailey begged, with tears falling again. "I assumed you already knew. I thought he must have told you the truth."

"The only truth I can see is that the Doctor brought a lunatic on board and thought he could turn her civilized and sane. You crazy attention seeking nutcase!" Rose answered back, shouting louder and leaning right in to yell in Hailey's face. She still held her by the front of her button down top in a clearly aggressive manner.

"Oh just stop it," Hailey mumbled. "Go play in the traffic or drop dead in the bathtub or something."

The Doctor stood beside his two combatant companions and tried for a quick moment to figure out what to do. For that moment in time all thoughts of the Time War and the end of Gallifrey, and the pressing issue of how to explain himself was entirely forgotten. He'd seen arguments before during times he'd had more than one companion on board at once, he'd even been involved in a few good ones in his time. But this was nothing he'd ever experienced before. To disagree and perhaps even raise one's voice was perfectly understandable from time to time; but those two he was sure could end up injuring one another. Quickly he stepped between them and forced Rose to step back far enough that she let go of Hailey's shirt.

Hailey stepped backward several paces as soon as she was released and right away she resumed crying hard and trembling.

"Well that's mostly just an attention ploy," Rose said, her voice matter of fact and full of sarcasm. She gestured toward Hailey with her right hand while speaking to the Doctor.

"Is not," Hailey screamed in frustration, through gut wrenching sobs. "I'm not just seeking attention and the pity of others. Why does everyone always think that about me?" the last few words she'd said were lost in a mumbling mess of gasping cries, but it was easy enough to piece her speech together and work out what she'd said.

"Rose, stop," the Doctor said firmly in a tone of complete seriousness.

"No. I won't just stop. And how can you side with her?" Rose threw her arms up in annoyance and continued with complete and utter stubbornness. "I don't know what gave her the idea to make up such a horrible lie in the first place, but that was an absolutely rotten thing she said to you. She's doing it for attention. She has to be. She's probably just resentful of something to do with her mother and decided it was okay to..."

"Just stop it. Please." the Doctor's tone was suddenly one of such seriousness, and his look one of such warning that Rose shut her mouth at once.

Hailey, much to his great dismay had fallen completely silent as well and she'd backed up several steps, clearly afraid. She held her hands over her face trying hard to muffle and then stop her crying. It was just as clear though that she simply could not stop.

"Hailey can you explain exactly what you are saying?" the Doctor asked with the most calm he could find within himself. The world was crumbling around him, and he knew it. He thought back in that moment and realized another horrible truth that he'd so naively overlooked. Most of his worry and concern had gone to thoughts of what might happen if Hailey ever figured everything out this late. He couldn't stand to think that she might hate him, but now the fact that he might lose both of the girls in this mess hit him. He'd always imagined and taken it for granted somehow that Rose would just sort of accept it, as she has so much else. But she was clearly so intent on denial of such a thing that she was ready to fight with one of her best friends, in order to force the matter to remain denied.

"The destroyer of the Time Lords," Hailey mumbled, her voice still made nearly unclear by intense emotion. "Of course I know it had to be someone, but finally I realized it must have been you. It.. it makes complete sense. You... say you are the last, but you are also on the... on the other side of the time lock."

"You lying freak!" Rose roared suddenly. She stomped across the room and grabbed Hailey again by the shirt. The shocked and shaken young student barely had time to look up in surprise once again, before Rose slapped her across the face hard enough it might have put her own mother to shame.

Hailey's tears stopped right then, as annoyance and anger took over.

"You think I've never been slapped before?" she demanded in disgust. "I've been smacked, I've been punched, kicked, and bashed into walls. One day I just started hitting back. You really want to try to hit to stop me from figuring out the truth? I said I was sorry and I thought you already knew. What more can I do? It isn't my fault the Doctor lied to you too."

"He's not a lier and he's certainly the the destroyer of his own planet. You know, if the Time Lords hadn't all been destroyed, they wouldn't want you anyway. Your own mother didn't even want you."

"Oh knock it off. That isn't true. My mother has so many issues it's not even funny, and I'll admit that. But she wanted me, and so did my father."

"Well your father certainly wouldn't have had he known how messed up you'd be when you got older."

"Shut up. Just shut up and stop insulting me." Hailey fell back into her uncontrollable bout of tears. "Seriously, what's your problem today. We used to be friends."

"Yeah but then you went all nuts," Rose mumbled under her breath.

"No one here is nuts."

"Sure, you're just an attention seeking lier, who suddenly wants to hurt others over your own screwed up life."

"You don't understand," Hailey shouted through tears. "I'd never say such awful things just to make trouble. I still hope to god I've got it wrong! And you just decided to come over and smack me."

"Yeah well I thought you needed a good smack."

"Both of you sit down," the Doctor commanded, more determined than ever to stop the two young ladies from fighting and shouting at each other. He knew both of them well enough to begin to understand the reason for reactions each was showing.

Hailey was in complete and utter shock over finding him to be the destroyer of Gallifrey. He hadn't only taken the lives of a whole world, although that alone would have been horrible enough. He'd also taken her father, many now never to be known relations, and a good part of her heritage from her. He knew and feared that she would never forgive him any easier than he'd ever forgive himself. How could he expect her to forgive something so unthinkable? With a feeling of finality he knew he never could expect or hope for that. He knew she would leave very soon and return to her life on Earth a broken mess. There was nothing he could do.

Rose was a slightly different story however. He'd been so sure she'd understand, if she ever found out what he'd done. She'd seen so much more of his darker side than any other human he'd come to care for ever had. And still she'd stayed all that time. Suddenly however she was reacting in anger. That he could fully understand, except that instead of directing her emotions toward him she was physically and verbally attacking Hailey, while defending him in her state of unreasonable denial. Hailey had spelled it out to her, and yet she choose to deny it and start a fight instead. With a slight shake of his head, the Doctor reflected to himself that Rose was never one for fighting in the first place. He'd never known her to have any involvement in such a confrontation before, and he'd certainly never known her to start one.

Hailey sat in one of her favored places, in the open space in the center of one of the curving support beams. Rose reluctantly and frowning the whole time, went to sit in the captains chair near the console. Relieved at the end of the immediate conflict between his companions, but dreading the next moments and quite possible the next weeks or months immensely, the Doctor stood leaning against the far wall near a control panel and started to speak to them both.

"Hailey is right." He looked at the floor, and wished everything to go back to the start of his travels with both of the young ladies. He wished for a return to the innocence and the fun of adventure and discovery seem through Hailey's eyes, and that had never yet even begun to leave Rose's either. "It was me that brought about the end of my own world."

He went on to tell the story of the end of the end of the time way to both of them, trusting that they could both gain a good enough grasp of it and not become confused by at all. He left so much out - things not directly related to the story at hand - and went on to explain the true danger to the universe that the war had posed. He made it clear both to himself and to them, that he'd used the only option left to not only end a war that would otherwise have not stopped until all every member of each race involved was dead, but also to stop it from soon destroying the entire universe. All three stayed in their respective positions with tears falling from their eyes as they each in their own way tried to accept everything.

At some point, though none of them ever really took notice of exactly when and how, all three of them had moved to sit on the floor of the room against and wall with the Doctor and both of his companions hugging one another and crying silently for a while. In times before, they might have all quickly brushed it all off the best they could and set off to find a new adventure and some distraction. This time though it was different. Emotions were running so high that everyone was too exhausted by it to even think of traveling anywhere. Finally, after a long while of just sitting with the others, Hailey got to her feet and made her way into the hall, wandering off to be by herself again.

Rose got to her feet a short time later and returned to the Doctor within minutes to hand him a hot cup of tea. Almost as an after thought she set the cup down on the floor instead and offered him a hand up. Gratefully he let her pull him to his feet and he was happy to sit with her in the kitchen.

"I'm not just going to take off and leave you know," Rose said, using the look on his face to correctly guess his worst fears.

"We all do terrible things," she went on, when he had still not spoken minutes later and the silence was heavy in the air. "Sure most of us have never destroyed our own planets thankfully, but that was a very complicated case. I believe you when you say it was the only way left. If there had been any other options open I know you would have resorted to plan B."

"I'm very sorry about smacking Hailey and calling her all those things," she said when the silence still lingered a fair amount of time later. "My behavior was simply appalling. I don't know why I did that... why I went so far. I suppose I just thought of defending you and I went a little to far on her. In way I didn't want to believe the truth, but really the truth is not so terrible to understand."

"Well don't apologize to me," The Doctor said after she'd finished speaking. Rose smiled with relief at finally hearing him say something. "It's Hailey who needs apologizing to."

"Do you think she's alright? Are you alright?"

"Yes I think I am," the Doctor actually looked happy. "I'm glad in a way that Hailey figured everything out. She caught me at something horrible, but all the same I'm glad you both understand the truth. I don't think I'd ever have been honest if she hadn't confronted me about it. I suppose I care about both of you far to much to have willingly risked it." He lowered his eyes and muttered uncertainly, "I know from a human perspective that must sound terrible."

"No it doesn't," Rose answered. "It sounds very... human. I'm still so surprised sometimes when I look at things from a wider view and remember you're actually not from earth. You could pass for human so well and no one would question it."

"No one ever really has yet."

"So what do we do now?" Rose asked,. She hugged the Doctor for a moment before moving to the counter, to put the tea cups as well as a few odd dishes that were on the counter into the sink. "This seems like a kind of day to stay in here and just do not much at all."

"Yeah. So you sure you want to stay then?"

"Sure I do," Rose grinned. "I want to stay with you forever if I can."

The Doctor looked around with uncertainty. He thought intently and paid attention to the inner voice of the many possible time lines that remained ever present in his head. For a moment he looked sad, then hopeful, then sad again and finally just uncertain and confused. He shook his head slightly to rid himself of the feeling that had begun to overwhelm him, but it didn't work.

"What is it," Rose questioned in concern.

"There is something... strange coming toward us," he explained slowly, still working it all out himself. "It's big. Very big and a fixed event in time. Change is bound to happen soon, and I don't think we want to know what sort of big change that is."

"Doctor... when you say big you mean...?"

"Something that will effect the whole Earth and be seen and felt by everyone on it."

"A world wide event," Rose mused quietly, now growing nervous herself. "Wow, that's big alright."

"Yeah."

"Are you going to be ready for... well for whatever it is that happening soon?"

"I'm always ready," the Doctor said, finally sounding happier once again. "The question is will you be ready?"

"Of course."

~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~

Rose met up with Hailey quite by accident later that evening in the TARDIS library. She was on her way to bed, wearing a pair of pastel pink fleece pajamas and simply looking for something simple to read for a while before she went to sleep. A romance novel perhaps, she decided, walking though the the rows upon rows of so many assorted and diverse collections of books from every time and place imaginable. She didn't go into the library very often at all. Only to grab a book or two once in while when she actually had time to read and was not too exhausted by the end of the day to do so. That night she found herself wandering somewhat aimlessly, forgetting entirely when fiction from early twentieth century Earth might actually be found. She turned around, having found herself in a section of long shelves of oversized books that judging by the titles on the spines were in a clearly alien language.

She walked away fro the overwhelmingly large shelf of book and it was then that she Hailey standing in one of the open areas in between sections of shelves. She held a considerable pile of large hard covered books in her arms and still wore the clothing she'd worn during the daytime. Rose walked slowly toward her, and Hailey stayed where she was, clearly willing to make another attempt at civilized conversation.

"Just looking for a little light reading before bed," Rose said casually.

"Me too," Hailey answered. She laughed a little as she gestured with her eyes toward her stack of thick and heavy books. Aside from the mandatory Gallifreyan Academy textbooks, she chose most of her own reading material now, and was so clearly perfecting her talent for comprehending and taking in impossibly large amounts of written language in a considerably short time. The five large and complicated books she had chosen from the ship's library would probably be read and returned within a couple of months at most.

"What are you looking for?"

"I think I'd like to read a short romance novel."

"Far end, nearest to the back wall, explained Hailey, who spend for more time in the library than Rose did.

"Thanks. I'll go grab one in a minute. What're you reading now?"

"Oh these are mostly science books. And I found a book on the history of early earth based religion in privative human culture to read in bed."

Rose shook her head a bit and laughed before her expression turned more serious once again. "Hey, I'm really sorry about the over reacting and smacking earlier on. That was certainly uncalled for."

"It's alright."

"No it isn't. No reason at all I should decide to just go slapping my friend because I don't like what she has to say all of a sudden. It was just so unbelievable that you would say the Doctor had destroyed his own planet. But you were right all along. Maybe I should have just let you finish talking."

"So you are staying on board then?"

Rose nodded. "I'm actually surprised that you appear to be."

"I am for now anyway," Hailey explained. She sat in a chair nearby and set the books down on the floor beside her seat. "I need to think everything over and really come to understand how I feel about all of this. Honestly I have no idea what to think. I suppose I'm over reacting in a way. You don't seem bothered at all, yet I'm so confused."

"It wasn't my planet though," Rose said thoughtfully. "To me the planet of the Time Lords is just some far away place that I've heard of now because I know the Doctor, but that's about it. I was always sad to learn his home is gone, but it never held any personal significance to me. It's different for you though. For you it's more personal."

"I think I'm just going to stay around for a while," Hailey said, thinking out loud. "You know, just go on living like I have for months now and see what happens. I don't know how I feel and I need to stay to find that out."

Rose nodded in understanding. She pulled a chair over next to her friend and sat down on it.

"My Mum's wedding is coming up very soon," Hailey went on. "George's daughter Melissa and I were both asked to be bridesmaids. That should prove interesting if nothing else. Melissa as I understand it now, would prefer I didn't show up at all, because she doesn't think I need to have any part in her father's wedding. Thing is it's my mother's too so of course I'll be there. I tell you, having a step sister is sure to be a constant source of frustration, even though neither of us live in the house."

"I'm often so glad my mother never remarried," Rose said. "I sometimes wished she'd find someone to be happy with but I don't think that'll ever happen."

"A mother finding someone is a mixed blessing I think," Hailey said rolling her eyes slightly and laughing. "I've been helping with anything I can whenever I make it out to visit. Yesterday Mum wanted me to help her pick out flowers from a catalog while we waited at the station for Melissa's train to get in. They're just rushing everything I think and trying to do five things at once. Then I find out I get a soon to be step sister that made it clear she hates me several times in one day, and she doesn't even know me yet. Anyway I'll be happy when this is all done with because then at least it's over and done with. I think I'll stay away a few days TARDIS time, though. You and the Doctor might be glad of some time to travel and find adventure without me."

"You really think we want...?"

Hailey nodded and laughed. "As it is now, I think I'm in the way sometimes. It's so obvious you two are completely in love with each other. A few things tonight alone proved that once and for all. Find some time on your own and actually admit it."

"He'd never say a thing," Rose said, suddenly sad. "Even if I did. He'd only laugh or something. It's this whole big hopeless and complicated thing we'd have going on for like a year now. Neither he nor I will ever be the first to say it and we both know neither ever will."

She looked and Hailey and caught her laughing and shaking her head slightly in utter disbelief.

"You don't thin that's sad?"

"No," Hailey answered with her usual blatant honesty. "Well a bit I suppose, but mostly I just think that's completely ridiculous. Someone needs to smack him good."

Rose only laughed and shook her head again in disbelief.

"It all makes a lot more sense though now," Hailey said after a couple of minutes in which the two only laughed silently to themselves. When Rose looked up with eyebrows raised in curiosity, Hailey continued speaking. "I came back here today just so mad at the Doctor, I never stopped to even think of feelings or the complexities of unspoken love. I was aware of all that already of course. You both make it so obvious at times. Thing is though I was just so mad and hurt and just plain scared, I never stopped to think. Besides I really did think you already knew about whole situation involving the end of Gallifrey and the time war. Anyway I should have had the foresight to think of this but I didn't. I know I've always been far too impulsive and ruled by emotions at times. Really though if someone came running in and loudly stating that someone I secretly loved had done horrible things I never even knew about, I'd be furious too. I'd probably call her a lier and smack her... or worse."

"You're being so blatantly honest, I guess I ought to be too," Rose said. She looked around the huge library distracted and unsure how to best state what she wished to say. "I suppose... in a way I was always a bit jealous since you came along. I mean, I was happy at first when the Doctor wanted to take you with us. But it seems more and more that you two have so much to work on together it made me mad in a way. Horrible to think like that, but I got so tired of feeling like now that he has another Time Lord to get to know, I was just 'some human.' It was all so silly really. It isn't like he was completely ignoring me. And of course teaching a student right from the beginning would of course take a lot of time. You both sleep so little of course you'd hang out with each other alone at nights. I hate that that bothers me. Sometimes I'm afraid that..."

"You worry one day me and Doctor will end up together and you'll never even have had a chance to tell each other you loved one another for heaven knows how long?" Hailey finished insightfully, after a minute in which Rose remained silent instead of completing her sentence.

"Sort of I think. I never really thought of it in words before though. I just knew I was getting madder and madder and I didn't even know why. I guess that sounds pretty bad."

"No, it sounds human to me. But seriously that would never happen in a million years. The Doctor and I may technically be the last two Time Lords, but that means so little in that respect."

"It's never even occurred to you though, that...?"

"Nope. Student-teacher relations, travel companions and friendship only. Besides I've sworn off romance and love entirely. I don't actually think of relationships at all. I know that sounds a bit messed up, but I have a strange kind of life."

After quickly selecting a book from the library's modern Earth fiction section, Rose hurried off her her room to settle down and read. She found herself however unfocused and distracted by constant and unpleasant thoughts. The Doctor's huge revelation, and his later words to her about big things soon to come, had shaken her up so badly she knew that sleep would be elusive that night. It was Hailey however that remained firmly and stubbornly on her mind, as she tried to consecrate of the first chapter of the book.

She had to admit, partly to her own disgust in herself and partly to her relief, that she was glad to hear Hailey was leaving for a while. It wasn't that she disliked Hailey. It was simply more or less that she resented her confidence in the face of such adversity, and her uncanny ability to reason with any terrifying form of life they'd encounter so far. She disliked the way Hailey and the Doctor were so often grinning at one another in unspoken understanding of some vague and impossible concept. Even worse, she resented Hailey's brilliant insightfulness. Rose wondered to herself with clear and painful annoyance, how and why it was that the very young Time Lady could spend so much time quite happily remaining outside the social interactions of others, only to later throw in some great insight into their common reactions and emotions.

**A/N; After thinking this over for a bit I realized that of course it makes sense that that some animosity would over time have developed between Rose and Hailey, likely caused mostly by unspoken jealousy issues. I'd only be kidding myself and the readers of this story if I hadn't at some point or another decided this growing issue had to make itself clearly apparent. **


	23. Chapter 23

** Sorry for the long delay. I've been busy again, as well as suffering from a case of writers block on this story. Anyways, I'm back at it now and hopefully will have a couple more chapters up soon. **

The Doctor was working alone in the console room on a few of the typical minor repairs he tended to carry out at night while everything was quiet, when Hailey finally crept into the room once again. She stood, lingering silently in the doorway. He finally turned to look at her after he'd finished loosening the bolt he'd been working on. He noted with some degree of worry and concern, that it was already nearly five in the morning London time. She did stay in her room alone all night at times studying, painting or sometimes sleeping, but given the events of the evening, her disappearing act did not look like a good sign at all.

"Need any help?" she questioned, speaking quietly, as though at a complete loss for what to say or do.

"I'm just fixing a few loose wires and things, but you can help me if you want to."

"Sure."

"Could you hold this little door open?"

Hailey sat on the floor reaching forward a short ways under the console to hold open a little metal compartment cover door with one hand.

"So I guess this old ship needs a lot of repair at times, hey?"

"Often just tiny little things," the Doctor replied. "She's a very old ship. It's pretty much the same as those old cars on Earth. Something's always loose or breaking down, but if you keep on looking for small things and fixing it before it becomes a problem, it'll just run and run and run."

"How old is this old ship?" Hailey ventured curiously.

"This is an old type 40. Discontinued before I was even alive. I can see why they stopped making them so long ago too. Awkward, clunky old things. This one was likely the last of it's type in existence once. I love it though. I've always been a fan of the old ones."

"So how old are you then?" Hailey questioned boldly.

"905 this year." The Doctor chuckled at Hailey's shocked and surprised expression.

"You look so young for your age," Hailey laughed.

"Seriously though," she said after a quiet moment. "Will I live so long?"

"It's a fair possibility. In truth though, because there has never been a living Human-Time Lord before, there is so little to be known for sure. It's still so unclear how long a life you can live, and what you will be capable of. I have to admit, it will sure be interesting to discover over time how much resistance you have to many of the things that a human would be bothered by, and how well you can adapt to new environments. As we've already seen, you can certainly take in and store information as fast as any Time Lord can. Yet you do sleep quite a bit more."

The Doctor completed his repairs and both of them got to their feet.

"Actually," the Doctor said, absently tapping the wrench he still held in his hand, with the fingers of his other hand. "I've been thinking about those same questions lately. I think I should run extensive physiological scans on you one day. It would be helpful if we could know more about how exactly your body works in comparison to both of your races of origin." He paused for moment and then said just as seriously, "I still can't even explain how it is you are alive in the first place."

Hailey only gave a strangely nervous look.

"I wouldn't hurt you," said the Doctor, laughing slightly at her wide eyed and somewhat exaggerated reaction to a comment he'd made with all well intentioned seriousness. He put the wrench back into a tool box at was left laying on the floor, before he pushed the whole thing aside with one foot. The two fell into silence for a while.

"I couldn't sleep tonight," Hailey said. "I tried for a while, then I got up and painted for a bit. I was far too distracted to really do a good job with it though. My mind has been so caught up in this end of the war and destruction of Gallifrey thing."

The Doctor froze for a moment in the instinctive panic he'd taken to feeling whenever someone happened to make any mention of the destruction of his home world. However he stopped himself right away and forced himself to simply let her speak. She was calmly talking to him now. Surely that had to hold some promise of understanding.

"I've been up for hours now, busy on the ship's computer, retrieving almost every saved image and bit of text information it has on file from the events of the time war. I was also able to dig up many of the log entries sent to this ship from those of other Time Lords in those times. I found..."

"Hailey," the Doctor shouted louder than he should have before he realized he was even shouting in the first place. "What are you doing digging up hidden files? That and anything else of that sort is clearly secret information. How did you get ahold of the passwords and entry codes in the first place?"

Hailey ignored his yelling and only shrugged both shoulders at him, before shooting him her typical confidant and rebellious grin. "I didn't just get ahold of them. I worked out how to crack them all myself. Stop shouting, Doctor. You're going to wake the dead with all that noise."

"You never just come on board, and decide to hack my computer. What's the matter with you?" The Doctor only shouted louder than before, greatly put off by his student's casual attitude to such a serious offense.

"A better question might be what's the matter with you," Hailey mumbled under her breath. She frowned as she looked him in the eyes. Her expression was so clearly one of both disapproval of his words and one of outright defiance.

"You get back to your room right now!" the Doctor screamed at her. He was more filled with rage than he recalled being in such a long time that he could not even place the last such moment. He stepped forward a few paces, in the hope of sending her running for the hallway. Hailey only stared at him with her gaze unbroken. Her eyes turned though from her defiant expression of unspoken challenge to one of simple concern.

"Hey, you alright?"

"Just go." The Doctor's voice had lost much of it's loud and snappy anger and instead sounded quiet in an almost threatening way. He pointed a finger at her and looked down at her with his eyes narrowed.

"Oh don't you dare," Hailey said. She fought back the tears that came to her eyes. "If you think I'll go to my room like some badly behaving five year old brat, just because you told me to, you've got it all wrong."

"Hailey... "

"You don't want to hear what I have to say fine," Hailey answered back, shouting loudly as tears poured from her eyes. "Maybe I only wanted to tell you that I understand it all now. I get why you would destroy your own planet. I looked over every known angle and it really was either it or the whole universe. Maybe I was going to say that after looking into the things you would never show me yourself, I knew I had to forgive you for it all."

Hailey looked up at him for a moment, eyes wet with tears and her body trembling with so many mixed emotions. She backed toward the door leading the a main hallway. "How can I hate the fact that you give up the lives of your own people, who were already so changed by war by that point, in order to save the lives of so many countless billions of people you've never met. I didn't see it before as a brave action, but it was. Yet you just want to hate yourself for not saving both us and them. Then you to punish me for understanding. Fine. I don't care how much you resent me and everything else, but I refuse to feel rotten over it all."

"Wait," the Doctor called after her as Hailey turned to walk out into the hallway. "Please don't just walk away. I'm sorry. I'm very very sorry."

"I both underestimated you again and over reacted," he went on after Hailey had stopped dead in her tracks and turned around slowly to face him once again. "I should have just listened to hear what you wanted to say. I intended to, but somehow I just didn't. Since you are being so bluntly honest again, it's time I was again too. Truth is I've not been a completely stable person since... well you get the idea I think."

"Of course not," Hailey said in a tone of understanding. "It would be impossibly nieve for anyone, including yourself, to expect that the only survivor of his own race, would ever be a completely stable person. Anyway, how can anyone who has seen so much and lived so long ever be so."

"Everything's changed so much in the last months you've been here," the Doctor muttered sadly. He leaned against a wall, with a look of defeat on his face.

He might typically have tried to change the subject at that point by rambling on about everything and nothing all at once. This time however, he simply fell silent when Hailey did not right away say anything. She stared at him for a few long seconds, waiting for him to speak, and trying hard to understand his feelings without words. Finally, after these moments spent in silence, she once again spoke herself.

"I... I was afraid at first," she said slowly. She looked at him, saw a still impossible to read expression on his face, and continued with lack of concern for where it might take her. "Not afraid of you of course, but afraid of the whole idea that somewhere out there, was the one who had succeeded in destroying something as powerful as the entire Time Lord society. See, I always thought the destroyer of such a world would have to be someone terrible, crazed and bent on ultimate power. That or perhaps just so emotionally and mentally messed up that there would be no saving him, even from himself. I see though that nothing is really as it seemed at all. I suppose... I suppose the mind can conjure up all sorts of the worst kinds of ideas before we really get to understand anything at all."

The room fell into the same crushing silence as before, and Hailey, growing concerned that she had surely ether said far too much, or said something completely and entirely wrong, slowly moved toward the hallway again. She prepared to retreat to her room and spend the next days wishing things could be like they had been before.

"Hailey," the Doctor called after her, seeing her slowly retreating again. "I so often think you might be right in your best guess."

Her eyes opened wider, and she payed close attention again as he went on speaking. "So many times I don't think I can ever be saved from even myself. People, Time Lords or otherwise, were simply not meant to doom their own planet's to destruction. It's not as though there's any kind of emotional failsafe for such things."

Hailey stood still for a long moment in the doorway. In her mind she debated what she should say or do, but nothing seemed to be the right thing. The anger and fright that had overtaken her earlier that evening had left completely, as she faced the true emotion of the whole situation. She looked intently at the Doctor and saw from the look on his face and the tension of his body just how much he was impacted by the events not only of the day but of the past years. She only looked around helplessly unsure exactly what to do. For all other intelligence and aptitude for quite thinking, the handling of other's emotions had always been something that had mostly eluded her. She'd tired of course in the past to offer comfort to friends with troubles of various sorts, but still it felt awkward to her to do such things.

"Well enough of all this doom and gloom tonight." the Doctor said, much to Hailey's relief pulling himself out of his state of clear and obvious sadness. He held out a hand and Hailey took it quickly, before he pulled her back over toward the ship's controls.

"If I remember it right, the TARDIS computer should contain the training programs used by students many years ago. I think this old ship and I can teach you to fly it."

~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~

"Hailey," the Doctor questioned forcefully, "you got a fix on that signal yet?"

"Still working it out." Hailey's reply was shaky and urgent as she pressed keyboard buttons on the front of the console's navigation terminal.

"Well work it out faster! We need those coordinates in order to follow it."

"I'm trying. It... okay now it's signal is muted by the planet's atmosphere."

"So amplify the receiver," the Doctor cried, with clear frustration.

Hailey reached over to her left without looking. She looked for her required button with her fingers only while her eyes remained fixed on the monitor's faintly blinking series of rapidly alternating numbers. She fumbled helplessly with one hand while she read a series of fives eights, twos, nines and sevens out loud. Finally her hand found what it was searching for and she slammed her fingers down into the button fast.

"Amplifying," she said with relief, taking her eyes off the monitor and looking around.

"Well where is it? Can you see it now?"

Hailey thought fast once again and looked back at the monitor. "Umm... straight for Earth. On it's present course it's landing point will be on land."

"Seven possible continents, and several countries in each one. You're going to have to be more specific."

"Working on it," Hailey said hurriedly.

"You'll have to work faster!"

Sitting in the captains chair and watching the whole urgent and hurried exchange, Rose could only roll her eyes and shake her head slightly. The seriousness of the situation did so little to stop her from realizing the worst kind of humor in the situation she was calmly witnessing.

"He should have taken over two minutes ago," she mumbled under her breath and so quietly that the other didn't hear a thing. "For all her brains, that girl wouldn't know Africa from Australia on a map. It wouldn't surprise me if she couldn't locate England."

"Have you got a location yet?" the Doctor demanded. The expression on his face made it clear he was about to take over for his student, in very short seconds.

"North America," Hailey said quickly. She read the scanner again and continued on speaking, clearly not willing to give up or be out done. Eastern United States. Lost it again. Okay got it. It's going to land right in the center of Chicago."

"We need to lock on to it. Quickly!"

Hailey hurried around to the other side of the console and pressed a red button in the center of a panel.

"Locking on!"

"Or trying to..." she said not two seconds after having spoken again.

"Trying to?"

"Yes. Trying to," Hailey said in frustration. "The TARDIS can't hold the position of it, the thing - whatever that actually is - is bouncing from time line to time line and it's heading right for the main business district. This is just getting worse and worse."

The Doctor held a switch in the down position with one hand and repeatedly pressed a nearby blue button with the other while he tried with only a small measure of success to use his left foot to hold a second switch in place. Hailey hurried around to take over control of that switch and he gave her a look of silent thanks.

"Do you know what it yet?" Hailey questioned. "Are you sure it's a manned craft?"

"Yes, but I still can't get a response from whoever might be on it."

Reaching as far as she could, in order to keep hold of the switch, Hailey rushed back over to navigation. Her eyes grow wide in surprise and dread as she read and then reread the latest and now far more specific information.

"Doctor, this just gets worse. It looks like it's about to crash into the offices of the Chicago stock exchange. And it isn't slowing down!"

Rose watched the Doctor and Hailey fly the ship, sure they might need a hand but at the same time knowing it best to avoid getting in the way. She couldn't help frowning as she watched the two of them work together and found herself forced to admit that they made a somewhere near decent flight team. Much to Rose's unspoken dismay, the Doctor had made the announcement weeks before, a very short time after that nearly disastrous evening that Hailey had confronted him about the end of Gallifrey, that he was starting teach his student to fly the ship. Of course anyone could learn to push a few buttons from time to time when he happened to need an extra pair of hands for the job; but he intended teach her to actually fly almost completely by herself.

Shaking her head again, this time in disbelief at the absurdity of the situation at hand, Rose remembered the first few hard and jarring impacts of Hailey's first few landings, and thought with resentment that if she'd had to put up with much more of that, her head might never have stopped aching for months. Once again, she could not help but to feel relieved that Hailey was leaving for a while very soon. It would be only a few days Earth time now before she took off for a week. Rose briefly entertained the thought of Hailey deciding to stay on Earth. She quickly shook her head to rid herself of such ideas, perfectly willing to admit that such ideas were terrible, and certainly such thinking was most unlike her.

"Okay we know where it's heading," the Doctor said quickly. "Do we know when it's headed for yet?"

"1987," Hailey answered, reading intently from the monitor in front of her again. "1979. No, 1976. 1982, 1999, 1991, 2002, 1997. It... it's still jumping from one year to another."

"It's trying hard to lose us. Try locking on again."

Hailey pushed a few carefully chosen and located buttons again and then tried the whole sequence again. She frowned in frustration. "Not happening, Doctor. The TARDIS simply cannot lock on."

"Send another message to that unknown object."

"It still isn't answering us."

Hailey was clearly frustrated and trying hard to think of anything she might have missed, anything that might help them now. The Doctor more or less saw excitement in the whole situation, and he grinned at his companions as he continued to fly his ship as close as he could to the time traveling object ahead of them.

"Don't you think that following something about to hit an office building is perhaps just a little bit dangerous?" Rose muttered with obvious sarcasm that she didn't even try to disguise.

"Of course it is," the Doctor said excitedly. "But isn't trying to stop it before it hits said building and kills at least a few hundred people somewhat important?"

"Yeah Rose," Hailey said still watching the monitor and muttering to herself when the thing ahead of them took off back into the 1970s. "Whatever happened to the concept of adventure. Number one prerequisite for this sort of life, remember."

"Says someone who started out terrified of the ship moving across a city," Rose mumbled. Hailey only shook her head and gave a good natured laugh as the Doctor quickly landed the TARDIS.

"Oh come on," she said laughing at her friend's sudden sour attitude, as the three stepped out into the bright and beautiful weather of an American autumn. Up ahead loomed office towers and all around rushed pedestrian crowds - but no one really noticed their strange and sudden arrival in the city's business district. "This is just training, remember."

"Nice work Hailey," the Doctor said stepping out behind the two females. "I think I must have failed every training run back in my academy days."

"I almost messed this one up too," Hailey answered, her disappointment showing through the excitement of the moment.

"I was too slow," she went on as the three walked at a leisurely pace up the sidewalk amid the afternoon crowds of mostly business people and tourists. "My reaction times are still far too slow and I can't think fast enough."

"Yeah, and a few geography lessons never hurt anyone either," Rose mumbled under her breath, but still audibly.

Hailey turned to her friend, completely missing the sarcasm in her voice. She replied thoughtfully, "it's not that my geography is off. I know what America looks like of course. But it's not like reading road maps. It's all heat signatures and three dimensional geological overlays... and everything is constantly changing as the ship moves through time over the land. America doesn't look like America at all."

"Better than I did the first time still though," the doctor said. "Next time though let's see if you can do it alone."

"Seriously though, where does your ship come up with such crazy scenarios?" Hailey remarked, enthusiasm overcoming her momentary disappointment with herself. "An unidentifiable, manned... something or other, headed right for a major city. No communication and no way to lock on."

The Doctor and Hailey walked along laughing, while Rose lingered behind feeling miserable and trying to shake the feeling off.

~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~

_October 30th 1990,_

_ Abigail is pregnant. The fact, though I denied it so hard at first, to protect both myself and her from such utter disappointment as I'm sure awaited us upon leaning it was not really possible, has been perfectly well confirmed at least a month ago. Today I spoke to Abigail once again, trying the best I could to explain to her the possibilities and enormous unknowns we face. She is still planning the likely timing of everything based on the nine month pregnancy that a human would quite logically expect. I'm not sure she has it all correct though. Based on all I was able to work out from the limited information in a few books on board my ship, and the careful calculations I made from those sources, we might have only a matter of six instead. My greatest fear, though I can barely bring myself to write this on paper and am indeed forcing myself to, for the sake of documentation of my feeling in the moment, is that the child will not live at all. _

_ Abigail chooses though, I suppose with fair reason, to expect the most hopeful of outcomes. She is currently looking over paint colors for the spare room upstairs, sure it will soon bethe baby's room. yesterday she came home with a little book of baby names and seemed quite determined that the child would have a known name before it's arrival. She's absolutely convinced it's a girl, though at this point it;s certainly far too for anyone to even begin to make a guess. _

_ I explained to her one day this weekend, that the children of Gallifrey are not entirely like those of Earth. I was of course not trying to ruin her happiness and excitement, but instead only to warn her in advance that if we do indeed have a living and healthy child, it may not be exactly like those of her friends. She only laughed and said that no two children are the same in any case, and whatever ours proves to be, all we can do is love her. She then proceeded to begin a long string of questions about childhood on my home world. She seems to have settled on the word "gifted" to describe what we can best guess our baby my grow to be by the age of three. Abigail laughed then and said that while she knows there are gifted schools in London, she will have to leave job of training her mentally to me. _

Hailey sat at the desk in her room on board the ship, reading her father's journal once again. She had to admit that she loved to read the parts about herself, even those written before she was born. Such entries, written years before, in times long past, reminded her that she had indeed been loved very much by her parents. Once in a while she dared to allow herself to daydream of the possible life she might have had if things had been different. She could easily imagine that if her father had not had to leave, her parents would to that day, be together and happy. She would be currently planning to throw them a twenty-first anniversary party. Or would it be their twenty-second?

She would have left home a year or two before, to start a life of her own, but she would visit them both every Sunday. She would practice mental communication and self control with her father, and exchange pastry recipes with her mother. She was sure she would still have met the Doctor at some point or another and would have of course introduced him to her father. Of course they would have both been overjoyed to have another Time Lord to talk with. With a sigh of disappointment that that life could never be hers she flipped through the pages a bit before she went on reading.

_January 26th 1991, _

_ One month to go now, if even that long, until we welcome our child into the world. I know there are so many dangerous and tragic possibilities , but nevertheless I am becoming filled with excitement at the very chance that things could still be okay. i cannot help it. For all my worries and doubts, (there has after all never been a human- Gallifreyan child before,) Abigail's excitement and happiness is certainly catchy. And I really do suppose it's best to expect a positive outcome, instead of await a negative one. _

_ Abigail asked me last night as we got ready for bed, what I wanted to call the baby. She laughed at my first choice, and shook her head in disbelief and my second third and forth. I suppose from a human perspective Hayettayl, Eboriathr, Annienerly, or Damsimman are odd and entirely unheard of names for a little girl, but those are all respectable and powerful names from home. She only continued to shake her head though and insisted that such names would probably border on child abuse on Earth. She laughed as she sad that of course and it was clearly meant with humor, but still I know I will not win this one._

_ "How about Hailey?" she asked me as we got into bed. I must admit I do like that one. Hailey Andrews. It sounds a bit more human than I had hoped for, but it certainly is a pretty name. It will stand out a bit much on Gallifrey, but maybe that's not such a bad thing. Anyway I've never yet actually gotten up the nerve to mention the idea to Abigail of actually home with with our child in a few years. Yes, I do think that name with do fine, and if a human name for her makes Abigail happy then I can find no fault in it. _


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N; Well I'm back to this story again. I got busy with a couple other fanfics in the last couple of months, and of course anyone who fallow's my fics would know well that I am someone who sort of drifts between projects. I knew this one would be finished though and indeed it will be.**

**This is the second last chapter now, and I have a good idea of the plot-line for a second part to this story, which if all goes as planned I'll soon start work on. **

"Hailey, would you mind helping me for a moment out in the yard?" George's question, asked timidly but suddenly from the doorway to the kitchen startled both Hailey and her mother, who were chatting over tea at the table.

"I suppose so," Hailey quickly drank the last sip from her cup, before setting it down and hurrying to her feet to see what it was George actually wanted. She followed her soon to be stepfather out the back door of the house and found herself looking around outside, admittedly impressed by the well landscaped back garden.

The lawn was good and green even in the middle of the winter. It was just the type of grass she'd have loved to walk on barefoot in warmer weather. The branches of a large oak tree leaned over a brown wood stained fence in the east side of the lawn, and under it sat three small garden gnomes, which as far as garden gnomes went, were actually of the tasteful and artistic kind. The west side of the yard contained the flower beds, made of bricks lining the raised even dirt sections. In the summer, Hailey was sure they would be full of bright and cheerful blossoms. There was a white wooden toolshed at the far back end of the yard and that's where George was heading. She hurried after him.

"So how are things?" he asked her, shutting the door of the shed behind them both and leaving Hailey standing with him, leaning against the old well used work bench amid the smell of sawdust and dry flaking paint. A bare and bright light bulb, hung from the ceiling provided light in the small structure.

"Things are good," Hailey answered slowly. She looked around the workshop, mildly interested in the many woodworking tools, but unsure as to the use of any one of them. "I guess it depends though, what you mean by things."

George laughed. "Things as in anything in your life. "All the traveling, your friends, school for lack of a better word, any of that and more."

"Why do I get the feeling you don't really need my help with anything after all?" Hailey questioned with mild amusement. She raised an eyebrow at her mother's fiance.

Once again George laughed. "I didn't need your help. Mostly I just wanted to talk to you for a minute alone."

"Okay... well 'things' are good I guess. Things are things. I don't know whet else to say about all that. Really though, what couldn't you say in the house?"

"I just wanted to explain... Hmmm, how to best say it..."

Hailey laughed a little again, as George tripped over his words. She observed with a sense of mild amusement that he really did seem the stereotypical idea people had of an accountant; likely good with numbers and paper work, but so clearly bad at any sort of serious and civilized conversation.

"I suppose I should just hurry up and spit it out," George said. "I've been concerned these past few weeks. I've found myself thinking about you a lot, worrying over what you might think of me as your mother's husband. I never thought I'd ever find myself raising another man's child, and while you are already considerably old enough that we hardly have the worry of house rules and all those things, I still know you will be around a bit. I'm glad in a way that you are already grown up, but in another I almost wish I'd met your Mum when you were little."

"You wouldn't have known me back then, even if you'd known her," Hailey pointed out more bluntly than she quickly realized she'd intended to. "All you'd have found if you'd come along ten years ago is an asylum inmate with a daughter in the system, home she'd not seen in years and barely knew a thing about.

George only leaned in closer to her, as though worried that someone else might hear what he was about to say. His tone of voice turned very serious. "Knowing all I know after hearing every detail from your Mum, I don't believe for a second she was crazy, even back then. I'm convinced beyond any doubt that she was completely sane all along. I know as well as you do, that she was no more than a victim of circumstances and someone who was either honestly and legitimately misunderstood, or locked away to silence her. Who knows which one it was. Maybe a bit of both, for all I'll ever know. Point is I know she was perfectly sane. Had I met her ten years earlier I have little doubt I'd have loved her as much then as I do now. I've got some friends in a few pretty high places, and I'd have certainly not just sat by and watched the woman I love suffer not knowing where her daughter is, and if she's safe and happy. I'd have found you and brought you home to her, just as soon as I got her out of the god awful hospital."

"You really think that had you been around back then, you really could have done all that for her?"

"Well it wouldn't have been only for her of course. It would have been for you too. No child deserves to grow up hit and belittled and made to be less than she is. Your Mum would have been a wonderful mother if only someone had let her. Goodness knows, she's trying so hard now to be the proper mother to a young adult without ever having really been the mother to a child, and for that I commend her greatly."

"George, did you have anything to do with my mother's release from the hospital last year? Honest answer."

"Yes."

"Well then... thank you. From both of us."

"Most welcome of course," George answered.

"Hey" Hailey said, "Since we are talking to each other like proper adults here and being honest can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Months ago, you saw the Doctor's ship across the highway and you recognized it right away. It doesn't even look like anything even remotely related to time or space travel. You should have seen only an old blue box, thought it was a strange thing to be left on the side of the road maybe wondered whether you should phone the police to find out whether it was their box and, whether it might have somehow been stolen, and left it at that. But you knew right away exactly what it was. You told me once that you might tell me that whole story sometime. Would you tell me today?"

"I'd never seen it myself personally until that day," George said. "I'd only seen the official photos of it in the files, and read the report and things from back in the nineteen seventies. I've also never personally met the Doctor, but like so many others on Earth, I've always hoped I might one day. Before I left my position, and moved on to live a civilian life, I worked for a military organization called UNIT. The unified intelligence task force. I assume You've heard of it already."

Hailey nodded slowly. It was beginning to make complete sense "I've heard the name mentioned in passing conversation. I guess, as I understand it, the Doctor as part of their science department back in the day. Hard to imagine though... him working for the military."

"It seems others felt the same way in hindsight, but then again of course people change so much over the years. Anyway, he'd left work several years before I started. No one really knew exactly why , but all the same no one was surprised in the least that he just left one day and never bothered to explain why. I was one of the next generation, one of those to have pretty much inherited the information, and the speculations. Truth be told, I was shocked as could be to find that his ship really looked exactly how they always said it would. I'd always half expected everyone was being silly, trying to make fools of the new guys."

"It's so hard to picture you as having been in the military too," Hailey said. It was not as though she disbelieved him. His explanations made complete sense. She simply had a hard time seeing him as having that type of personality.

"I suppose I'm really not that type at all," George replied honestly. "My father made a lifelong career of serving in the air force. He was forced to retire for medical reasons about six years ago, and if he had a choice he'd still serve his country now, at nearly seventy years old. That's fine of course. I think a person should do what makes them happiest in their lives. The thing is though my father was, and kind of still is, one of the pushiest fathers I know. I was raised by this overbearing, forceful father who so often held and openly stated his opinion that I was a wimp and a baby. Once in high school I was accidently kicked in the head during wrestling practice, and knocked out cold for a minute. It happened it was a girl that kicked me. Well she felt horrible about it of course, and by the next day we had a good laugh over it. But my father never did let me live it down. I'd been injured by a girl and that was in his book a sign of pathetic weakness. He didn't care that she could keep up as well as the rest of us in any boys sport and it may as well have been a guy that kicked me."

George stepped out of the workshop in into the yard, where he started to pick up a few fallen twigs from the grass and tidy up the yard. Hailey helped him a bit as he went on with his story. "This sort of thing was so common in our house growing up. When I was ten years old I cried after my mother told me my grandfather had died that afternoon. My dad said if I wanted to do that, I'd stay in my room until I stopped and of course I wasn;t going to his funeral. There were so many times I tried to please the man but I always felt like a I never could. he was either never home to see the things I did and was proud of, or he was at home calling me a wimp and a loser. He never made a secret of the fact that he wanted me to join the military like he did. I didn;t really know what I wanted to do with my life anyway and I wanted to finally do something to make him happy, so I decided that's what I would do with my life."

"He was an airforce man but I didn't really want to do that. I far more interested in the scientific part of it all, and in the idea of possible alien life and stuff like that. I had no idea how true any of it was, but it was certainly more interesting than the airforce. So I joined UNIT. It turned out I was actually good at that job. I made it so high up in the ranks so fast. I was a major by the time I was thirty-one. I was good at it all, but I wasn't who I really was. My dad wasn't happy with it though. He said so many times that UNIT wasn't the "real" military. I guess one day I just realized I was tired of still trying so hard to please him. I was in my thirties and still wanted to please my father. I gave it all up then, turned in my notice and that was that. I became an accountant."

George and Hailey walked back into the house after their short time outside. Hailey quickly become involved in helping her mother with the final plans for the wedding, which was fast approaching, in only a couple of short weeks. Her mother put her to work, folding small flowers out of tissue paper and putting them carefully into a cardboard box for what they hoped would be safe storage in a closet. George, announcing with great enthusiasm, that even though it was the middle of January it was so warm out and he thought it would be decent weather to cook on the outdoor grill, left to run and pick up some steaks.

Abigail shook her head, rolled her eyes and then laughed, "Silly man. Oh well, who is it hurting I suppose."

~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~

"You could always stay here, you know" Abigail said in complete seriousness, as she stood in front of the TARDIS door with her daughter, ready to see her off once again.

Hailey looked at her in confusion. "Stay where?" she muttered slowly.

Abigail laughed. "Stay in England of course. Back in London maybe. You could even move out here and live in the village if you'd like."

"Live out here...?"

"Sure. George and I were talking all this over last night, before you got here. We have a couple of extra rooms in the house that we aren't really using. The one at the end of the hall upstairs is used for storage but it's a simple thing to fix it up as a bedroom. It's a nice big room with a big window and a closet. You'd love it I think. Lots of space for your books and art things. The coffee shop in the village square is hiring and so is the grocery store. George knows the men who own both of those places. He could get you either job easily."

"Mum, I don't think I can just..."

"Just think about it Hailey. I'd never expect you'd just drop everything and move back into a typical human life, but all the same I hope you might decide you want to try it for a while."

"You live in the country," Hailey said, looking for polite excuses. "How would I get to work every morning? It's not as though this place has a public transit system."

"It's so small out here that most people just ride bicycles. You could get anywhere on one in under a half hour tops. Eventually you'd likely decide to own a car in order to get into nearby towns I suppose, but..."

"I don't drive," Hailey said next, somewhat frustrated but hiding it well enough. "Back in London I just rode my bike or took the bus. No one really needs to drive in the city."

"So George or I can teach you how to drive. The road test isn't that hard to pass."

"I don't want to learn to drive."

Abigail laughed again. "Oh come on. You're telling me you know how to fly a highly advanced Gallifreyan ship through time and space and you can't drive a car."

"I could probably drive," Hailey said stubbornly, half laughing and half scowling with frustration that was growing harder to hide. "I just don't want to. Anyways in the time vortex it's not as though there's anyone else about to run us off the road!"

"Well driving and jobs aside, I really do hope you might wish to stay one day soon.

We've missed so much. During your childhood I used to worry about you so often. I wondered where you were and if you were happy. I wondered if you were okay, and what you might look like, and where you went to play after school. I used to imagine that you had all you needed and that you were always smiling and laughing. I pictured you as a little girl with strong opinions on everything and with no fear at all of stating them, and a brilliant mind that would put anyone to shame. All the same though I worried that anything at all could be wrong. Some nights I lay awake in fear that you might be sick or hurt or lost. I used to ask myself what I might do if I happened to learn that no one loved you, or that you came home every day after school to an empty house in a terrible neighborhood. Now that I know who you are once again and I see that I did have reason to worry after all, I don't want to anymore."

"Mum... I..."

""You know as well as I do how dangerous and unpredictable it is out there," Abigail said in a shaky voice. "I suppose you understand that ever more than I ever learned to. Your father liked to show me amazing things sometimes but he tried hard to find the safe places. I know enough about people and their personalities to know that the Doctor is someone who almost goes out looking for trouble sometimes. Granted, it's not likely he means to land in great danger, but such things it seems have a way of finding all of you every time. From the stories you tell me, I can't help but worry that one day you won't make it home."

Hailey smiled with confidence. "It's not so dangerous out there. Well it is I suppose, but we've seen so much in the way of good too. We've saved cities and made peace between races. And between all that's there's school and..."

"What about what you told me last time you visited," Abigail interrupted, desperate to make her daughter see it her way. "About how you ended up hanging upside down from a rope bridge hundreds of meters over a raging river, after the darn bridge gave way! From what I can recall so far, you've been in at least three buildings that you barely made it out of before they exploded or collapsed, and in areas that were exposed to alien viruses. God knows how many angry and evil creatures you've met in the last year!"

"Point taken. But it isn't all bad. It's not always like that."

"You must understand. After finally getting to know you again after so long, I know who it was I was missing all those years. After losing you once, I don't think I could survive losing you again, this time forever."

Hailey promised once again to be careful, and when that didn't work as well as she'd hoped, she promised she would think over the idea of staying. She promised an answer on her next visit home, and her mother looked somewhat relieved at her serious consideration. With a quick hug and then an enthusiastic wave, she boarded the ship and slowly closed the door behind her.

The Doctor, sitting in the captains chair with a book open in his lap and his feet up on the railing looked up happily and grinned at her, but Rose was nowhere in sight. Hailey slid her backpack from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor, near the door. She muttered a quick hello, and picking up the pack again, she walked off to her room to study. She knew full well she was not going to think seriously about her mother's suggestion.

The Doctor however, though he had not let on in the least, and Hailey had not come anywhere close to guessing, had been listening at the door. It was not as though he was in the habit of eavesdropping on conversations between his companions and their loved ones on Earth, or even between each other. But he had heard the first few important lines quite by accident while simply wandering close to the door to pick up his book. Abigail's words however about wanting her daughter to have a typical human life again had concerned him, so he'd stopped to listen closer. Upon hearing the hopelessness in Abigail's voice, and realizing her despair at the thought of all that could possibly go wrong, he'd begun to think seriously to himself.

The plain and simple fact was that Hailey seemed to land in trouble with far greater frequency than most others he'd ever taken with him. She was impulsive and a strange combination of sometimes fearful and unsure of herself, yet all the same overconfident and certainly mouthy. Most other companions he'd had over the years he could keep at least somewhat safe and in control simply by giving instructions or in some cases by handing out orders. But Hailey had a great aversion to taking orders from anyone. Humans it seems followed orders when he gave them in part because they knew well enough that he was quite admittedly far more intelligent than they were. For the first time though in ages, he'd found himself traveling with someone that matched him as far as intellect went. The biggest problem with that seemed to be that she was so young and impulsive and horribly strong willed.

He stood for a moment thinking back to the evening not long before, when he had nearly lost his temper completely on her after she had proudly admitted to hacking into the TARDIS's computer files. As much as he had to accept that he had acted in a way he was not at all proud of and that he would always regret, he also had to admit he was both shocked and horrified to find that she could stand up to such behavior and hold her ground yelling right back. He knew he'd never harm her of course, but he shock his head to rid himself of thoughts of what might happen if she did such a thing in the face of a deadly alien creature.

Hailey was, due to her partly Gallifreyan physiology, stronger in both mind and body than humans. Yet when compared against what might be expected of the Time Lords, she was weak. He knew her potential would always be slightly lower than typical. She was also, he reflected sadly, little more than a child, off to try to change a world that would never change even to please the most powerful of elders. Besides, he reasoned in defense of his own logic, the first time he'd seen her, back in London, she'd faced down a quite possibly armed mugger and then decided to carry out a bold escape, when good sense would tell anyone she should have handed over her money. She wanted to win, she knew she could and she went for it. She had known nothing of the life she had since learned of, she was simply doing what she'd always done. Again he shook his head. With Abigail's words replaying over in his mind, he thought over as he wandered toward the library, exactly what he intended to do.

~DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~

It was after her mother's wedding and near the end of a week long visit to the little house in the village, which she had stayed at house-sitting, that the TARDIS landed in the backyard as expected and planned. Leaving her mother and George, who had returned only that morning to their home, still cluttered with wedding gifts, to follow aimlessly Hailey hurried outside. The blue box landed, just as she had anticipated, in the garden near the porch. Rose didn't bother to step out at all. In fact she was completely unseen. Forcing herself to accept the reality that the two of them were just not friends at all anymore, Hailey waved to the Doctor, who stepped out onto the lawn alone.

"I've been thinking over the matter of your father's ship," the Doctor said with a clear hint of excitement in his voice. "No reason to drag it along with us in a cargo hold forever is there? It's one of only two of it's kind left in... well anywhere now. And anyway such a thing needs to fly, and process information, and think, and exist. Maybe it's time I let you fly her by yourself."

"Really?" Hailey tripped a bit over her words. "I... don't... you really think I can?"

"Of course. You've actually gotten mine to fly, and no one else can do that. Of course anyone can push a few buttons, but they never get her to really fly by themselves. Of course there's a lot of button pushing and steering and course plotting involved, but it's so much more than that. It takes a certain kind of mind to even will such a ship to listen to you, and if it won't listen it can't go anywhere at all. Your father knew you would have a mind that was capable."

"But what do I do?"

"Whatever you want to do. A TARDIS will disguise itself as anything of course, so it will just blend it anywhere. Leave it parked at your Parents house when you're away, and no one will ever notice it. One day you might need it."

"Okay. I suppose we could just..." Hailey mumbled shakily, confused and shocked by the events that she saw unfolding fast before her. Behind her, her mother and George stood, surprised as well but not disapproving.

The Doctor's time ship quickly dematerialized as soon as he had once again stepped inside and closed the door. It reappeared several meters away, closer to the fence, but where it had been parked now sat her father's old ship, still disguised as a simple garden shed. Clearly it had been released from the cargo hold, and held it's own independence once again. It's key's hung from the little doorknob in the front.

Hailey ran over her her father's ship; no, hers now, she reminded herself with a strange sense of sadness and for the second time in her life she placed her fingers on the key, ready to turn it.

"I'm just going to have a quick look around," she called across the yard. "I'll be ready to take off with you again in a minute."

The Doctor however, as much as she had expected him too, did not step back out and answer her. His ship started to dematerialize again. In confusion she called for him to wait once again, but within second the ship was long gone. Hailey stood on her Mother's lawn, her eyes blinking in confusion when it did not return again seconds later. She worked hard to convince herself that of course he'd be right back, that there must have been minor technical problem with the materialization circuits or some other related issue. But as the minutes went on and soon turned into half an hour she knew no one was coming back.


	25. Chapter 25

_ Eight months later_

Hailey sat in the control room of her father's TARDIS and once again reminded herself firmly that it was hers now and no longer her father's at all. She turned around in her seat and looked around at the green and slightly glowing interior design of the room. She'd thought a few times of changing it, replacing it with one of the many possible inner design patterns contained within the ship's computer, but she was still not ready to do that. She still saw the ship as her father's and could not bring herself to change anything from the way he had meant it to look. She turned back to the monitor and her hands shook as she slowly and carefully typed in a few deliberate numbers on the keypad beneath it.

It had been months now since she'd found herself both left back on Earth and in possession of the time-ship, and she'd spent so much of her spare time alone on board the ship just walking the hallways, studying the controls and the computer, and even learning to talk to the machine. She'd been so surpised and then confused when the Doctor had first explained to her so long ago that a TARDIS had a kind of great intelligence and awareness of it's own. She called them machines - everyone did that - but really that was hardly accurate at all.

The first time she had ever heard the Doctor's ship 'talk' to her she knew it could not be just some from of transportation and little else. Her own ship, she'd come to learn quickly, so much stronger mentally than even his had been. For all of her studying and wondering and practicing on the ground, Hailey had never yet traveled anywhere at all. She'd only so far dematerialized and rematerialized, several times over the past couple of months, simply for sake of practicing something she considered to be simple and easy.

Several times in the past month, she'd heard the sound of strange cheery laughter in her head. The first time she'd heard it, she'd managed to spill her near full cup of coffee onto her lap and the console, startled out of her wits. When she'd looked around and found no one there,

she'd feared for her own sanity and remembered that her own mother had been said to have gone insane many years before. The realization had hit her as she glanced anxiously about in the control room, that her own ship was actually laughing at her hesitation and mistrust of herself, and for the first time, she fought an urge to kick the console. She thought she finally understood fully, the reason the Doctor had so often randomly banged a fist on the controls of his own ship, or even whacked the thing with a rubber hammer. Once again she felt sad at the memory of a lost friend she knew she might never see again.

Hailey looked up from the keypad and smiled to herself nervously. A small laugh escaped her lips, though there was no one around to hear it. She hit the dematerialization switch, but for the first time she hit it with a destination programmed into the computer. When the ship rematerialized once more, she quickly turned the monitor so that she could look at it again. She gasped and then laughed and grinned and shook a little with disbelief as she looked out at the expanse of space that showed on the view screen. She stood for the moment thinking intently about where she might go, but a shrill ringing caught her attention.

For a moment she panicked, with every scenario of possible malfunctions running through her head. She stood with her knees shaking as she understood with embarrassed relief that it was only the telephone. With a laugh, she reached around to connect the call.

"Hello Hailey," a familiar, yet nearly forgotten voice said over the line.

Hailey struggled for words for a second. "Doctor? "What are you... why are..."

"I set up your ship up so that it would alert mine as soon as it finally left it's last location," explained the distant voice of her friend. "Hailey, you finally did it. You're flying through time and space."

"Yeah," Hailey replied, smiling and hoping somehow that he might hear her happiness and excitement over the speaker phone. "Well so far only space, but one thing at a time right."

"So where are you then?"

"About seven thousand kilometers from Earth. Not too far from home yet."

"Well before you go too far away make sure you find Earth on your monitor and have a look at the view of it from space. Or better yet, set up your air shield and open the door."

"Of course I'll be sure to do that. So where are you now? And when?"

"Time vortex. Could end up anywhere."

"I think I really get now what you always meant when you talked about the telepathic aspect of flight," Hailey said. "For some reason too, I think this ship is even stronger willed than yours is."

"Not exactly. Well I suppose perhaps a bit. Of course they do have their own personalities. Mostly though it's just the fact that that one is yours and of course it can talk with you the best."

"Wow. Somehow such things still amaze and shock me."

"So, what's it like so far, basically maintaining a telepathic connection to an intelligent multi-dimensional machine?"

"Odd, still scary at times, and I think I know that if it ever decided to just go where it wanted to go, I'd have no hope at all of stopping it from doing that. Still though it's all so amazing."

"It really is amazing isn't it. As for the idea of the ship going where it wants to, yeah don't even try to take control of it at that point. You've seen how much trouble even I have doing that. Why do you thing we've ended up in some of the places we've found ourselves in." Everything was silent for a moment before the Doctor spoke again, this time far more seriously. "I hope you aren't angry with me for leaving you behind."

Hailey thought a minute before she answered honestly. "I was at first. I've been sad, I've been scared, I've been angry, and even furious. I wondered so often at first if maybe I

wasn't good enough, or if you just got tired of me. I thought that I must have made a mistake so bad you didn't want anything to do with me again. There were many nights I'd lay awake in bed and wonder what I could have done that would have been that bad that you would reject the only other existing Time Lord in the universe."

"I wasn't rejecting you."

"I know that now," Hailey said slowly, with tears in her eyes. "I realized months ago that there had to be a good reason for it. You may not always have a reason for everything, but you would for something like this. I just don't see what the reason might have been."

The reply was simple. "Because, I knew that you needed to find yourself on your own. You've never really been able to do that ever in your life."

"I... I..."

"You can do it all alone now. Find adventure, learn, and see, and do. There's so much out there and most of it is amazing."

"Can I come back? To you and Rose and the TARDIS I mean."

"No."

Hailey stood staring at the console and the phone speaker, crying a steady stream of lonely tears.

"But why not? You might be the only person who really understands me. You could teach me so much more. And..."

"I never said never. I only mean right now you can't come back. Travel alone for a while. Stay on Earth and work a typical human job. Fall in love. Whatever you want to do, but do it for yourself and because it's what you want to do in the moment. One day you'll understand."

"Can I phone you sometime though?"

"Of course. Phone anytime. This ship's number is stored in your ship's directory. Somewhere in there you've got a phone-book for all of time and space."

"Okay," Hailey said sniffling but finally managing to almost stop her crying.

"I guess I should let you go now. You have so much to see and learn and find for yourself. I'd have an amazing life but that sounds so final and I hardly think this is really goodbye. So I'll just say good luck and have fun."

"Good bye Doctor."

"Good bye Hailey. Remember to open your door and take a look at the Earth."

The phone disconnected with a click and a buzzing sound before Hailey reached over to hang up with the push of a little red button.

She let the ship drift quietly in the open space high above the Earth, and went to sit for awhile in a chair in the sitting room. Hers was much smaller than the room she'd come to love so much during her travels with the Doctor and Rose, but it was still a lovely and amazing room. The walls in there the same green as much of the rest of the ship, the little place was filled with a few white armchairs, an overstuffed sofa, a couple of tables, and a television. In a far corner was a bookshelf, which she'd filled over the last months with some of her most read and favored books from the library that had once belonged to her father. Among the small collection of her most used books, were her own copies of the Galifreyan textbooks she had been studying on board the Doctor's time-ship. These, she understood exact replications on the old books, that her TARDIS had produced one day for her. She'd found them in the console room, left neatly on a chair not long after she'd found herself left behind on Earth.

DW~DW~DW~DW~DW~

The next months rushed by impossibly fast. Hailey traveled a little alone, but she never went very far from her own time and place at all. Mostly she just worked at the small grocery store in the village, and studied harder than before from her books. She worked on a series of paintings based upon her travels of the year before, and of course classified them as fantasy art when she showed them once to an agent from London. George taught her to drive his old car and she inherited the vehicle as soon as she'd acquired her license.

She was offered an art exhibit at the small local gallery and of course she accepted the offer. An art show in the summer kept her busy and a second part time job teaching a children's painting class at the little village youth center took up much more of her time. She spent less and less time on board her father's old ship, and more and more time living a mostly just typical human life. And though she'd imagined she could never again get used to such a life, she loved it almost instantly. Eventually ever her textbooks were all but forgotten.

It was on a Monday evening in June, that something unexpected happened. She's worked later than usual at the store, got home tired and decided to read some classic literature to unwind. Her mother and George had noisy company over and though they'd invited her to join in the get together and have a snack with them, she simply wanted some time to herself and away from the noise. The TARDIS seemed as good a place as any to take some time alone and the sky many kilometers above Earth seemed even better still. Without even feeling like bothering to change out of her work clothes, she made her way out to the ship. She set the controls and was about to settle back into a chair in the console room with her copy of 'A Tale of Two Cities,' when a light began to blink on top on the console. She jumped to her feet to take a closer look and work out the reason for it when a forgotten concern of months ago came to her again full force as it became reality.

She'd only wanted to send the ship into space a short ways but she quickly understood that it had thrown itself into the time vortex. As Hailey struggled to keep up with the numbers that raced by on the monitor, the ship raced rapidly through time, jumping time tracks back and forth and not stopping though she exerted more will than ever before over the ship. It was flying itself, going when it wanted or needed to be and she could not stop it or control it. Her stomach sank as she understood that she might well be in trouble. She was already passing the year 3956 and still moving further forward in time.

"Stop!" she shouted out loud with desperation. Losing her balance she stumbled backward, and tried to grab ahold of something. She fell hard onto her backside before she could ever react properly and she was right back down again the moment she tried to stand up. "Please. listen to me. What's the matter with you all of a sudden?"

With a good bit of effort, she managed to pull herself up onto her feet again, and keep her balance by holding tightly to the front of the console as the ship rattled and rocked badly on the current of time itself. From somewhere in the back of her mind she recalled reading so many times in the more advanced of her books, the great importance to trust between Time Lords and their TARDIS's. So impossible a thing it was though, she understood with concern, to hold any trust in the ship when it seemed only determined to throw itself clear across the known universe with deadly force.

Dear god, she thought silently with panic, where and when was it trying to take her and why? Her mind raced with possibilities and fears. She had no idea at all what might be out there when she finally landed. Of course she;d seen so much during the days that she had once traveled, but the universe was so big and aside from that there were so many periods of time... and she was moving forward into the truly unknown. She quickly fought back the waves of panic and dread and allowed herself to feel the excitement of exploration. She'd come to love the feeling of discovery, she'd gotten to know the year before, and finally though she was now alone and faced with the task of actually trying to fly and land the ship, it was not all together terrible once she gave up on panicking.

After what seemed like at least twenty minutes but must have only been well under five the ship stopped in midair somewhere. Hailey, looking intently at the monitor saw she was near a surface somewhere, and she tried to land. The ship hit the ground with a rough bump that nearly knocked her over again. So many thoughts raced through her mind at once. She wanted to run environment checks and then step out and see where she was. But at the same time she wanted to set a course right for home without daring to look at all. She wanted to go outside or at least check to see where and when she was, but at the same time she could barely bring herself to look. Abruptly she remembered that the ship had brought her there of course that would never just happen for no reason at all. She may not understand at all yet what the reason might be, but she knew she had no choice but to go outside.

She was still on earth, she discovered with surprise, no more than a few seconds after she'd opened the door. It was a time a ways into her future, and it was clear that she was not on a world belonging to quite the same human society she knew. But still, the arcatecture of the city all around her, the smell of familiar food cooking in a nearby flat and drifting through an open window, it was all so close to the Earth she knew. Not only was it Earth, in some future year, Hailey figured quickly, she was in London. She was standing on a city sidewalk in the springtime, looking out across the street as a high speed bullet train roared and rattled it's way past a few blocks of flats and a high chain-link fence that separated the residences from the train-track. Almost directly overhead, a metal bridge carried a steady flow of traffic over the roof tops of a few office buildings. She turned and looked toward a city park, nearly empty that day except for a few young men throwing a ball around and a lady with a great dane laying at her feet as she sat on the grass and used a small hand held computer. Through the park along the edge was a path lined with small trees.

Hailey walked forward a few steps, her confidence growing with every second that passed. She glanced back once to find that her ship had already transformed itself to best blend into the setting. It looked exactly like a blue delivery van, and was labeled with the name of some appliance store that she could see up the road the other way.

"Smart ship," she mumbled in amusement, laughing slightly to herself as she hurried toward the park.

With no real idea why she had chosen the park as a place to wander, instead of the sidewalk, but sure that it simply seemed the thing to do, she walked further in. The lady with the computer mumbled a hello without looking up, and the enormous dog sniffed the air for a second before settling back down to nap.

"Excuse me," she said to the lady with slight hesitation. "Could you tell me the date please?"

"Sure. May 15th. Thursday."

"Thanks. But what about the year?"

The lady set her computer down on the grass and looked up with a bemused and even baffled expression on her face. She blinked her eyes a couple of times in surprise at the question. "You need the year?"

"Yeah," Hailey said with newfound confidence. laughing, she made light of it. "Yeah, supposed to be common knowledge, I know. But you know how it is... yeah, one of those kind of days."

"4837," the Lady answered simply. She picked up the computer again. Hailey muttered a quick thank you and took off into the path.

As the walking path made it's way into the center of the park, she found herself amid a thick grove of trees. Hailey's smile spread over her face as she spun around in the center of what looked a lot like a very small forest with the sun streaming in through the treetops. She held her arms out to the sides and spun again in another slow circle, looking first at the clouds above, and then letting her gaze drop lower to see the trees again. A flash of blue caught her eye once and she stopped simply because she had noticed something out of place amid the shades of green. She turned back to look for the blue color again and her mouth fell open in shock. At the far edge of the little grove of trees, opposite the end of the path, a blue police box sat half hidden by the branches of the elm tree beside it.

Right away she hurried over to knock on it's door. Her mind raced with a thousand thoughts at once as she tried to comprehend that she had really found the Doctor and his ship again. Her own ship had brought her right to his. For a tiny fraction of a second she wondered why then of all times would it do that, but just as quickly as the thought had occurred to her, it vanished in her excitement and surprise. After a couple of long minutes she knocked again. There was no answer at all from inside the ship, and she knew there could very well be no one inside at all. She thought that perhaps she should come back later. But of course she knew that later the Doctor and his TARDIS would be long gone and off to anywhere in all of time and space again.

She remembered then that she still had her TARDIS key that the Doctor had given her during the year she'd traveled with him. It was on her own ship, stored in a drawer in a small end table in the sitting room, along with a few other random but personally valued objects from various parts of her life. Hoping beyond hope that no one would return while she was gone and take off without even knowing she'd come at all, she turned around and took off running to look for her key. She returned quickly as she could, only to find that for all her fears of being too late, the little blue ship was still where it had been minutes before. She slipped the key into the lock, hoping that perhaps someone, knowing she would come, had left her a clue of some kind inside.

She was greeted only by silence as soon as she walked onto the ship. Her heart sank, though she'd to find it empty. She didn't even bother to really look at the place, though she'd missed it so much, held onto so many wonderful memories of it, and hadn't been on board in what still seemed like so long. She just took off, nearly running through a hallway without fully understanding why she had chosen that specific hallway at all, or why she self such a need to hurry. After several minutes of rushing through that corridor she reached the end or it and found herself looking right at a closed wooden door, or less ordinary than any other of the many closed doors on board. It seemed important in that moment however, so she slowly reached out to turn the knob.

Hailey found herself standing in the doorway of a cluttered bedroom, that looked as much like a disorganized and chaotic study as it did a place for sleeping. There were just so many random and only partly logical things everywhere. There was a pile of books scattered all over a well worn out red sofa. Everywhere, on shelves along the walls, on the floor and under furniture, were small and larger storage boxes of various colors and patterns. Very few of them were closed completely. Many were over filled and the lids only sat on top half open. A few had no tops on them at all. On the walls hung serval star maps of different parts of the unknown universe. The bed, with it's blue bed covers half fallen completely onto the floor sat nearest to the far wall and it was on there that Hailey finally spotted the Doctor sitting and looking intently over a pile of photographs. She knocked on the door to get his attention, but when he didn't bother to look up, she wandered inside anyway.

"Hailey, what are you doing here?" He asked slowly, looking up now, but just barely doing so. "How did you..."

"My ship seems to have found yours. Can they talk to each other or something?"

"Hmm... sort of yeah. I suppose they do, in a manner of speaking."

"Incredible," Hailey said, not even trying to contain her surprise at a new bit of knowledge and understanding. She flew into a flurry of words, as she stood in the middle of the room, looking all around. "It really did seem as though my father's ship was so determined to bring me here by itself. It knew something I didn't know. It's intelligent. Of course I already knew that, but to really see it and really know... well that's something else. It's showing it's own sense of logical to me now. I think it's forming more and more trust now. When it first took off on it's own going wherever it wanted to without stopping it nearly scared me to death as you can well imagine, but really it was actually a bit exciting too."

The Doctor looked right at her with a smile, and moved to jump to his feet. But he stopped before he could really move anywhere and she could see that the smile was forced and used to cover another emotion. He was trying to convince her that he was glad to see her, but she could tell there was something going on that she wasn't sure she liked at all.

"So what's with the photographs?" she questioned casually, simply making conversation as she took a couple more steps forward.

The Doctor quickly put the pictures he held in his hand back into the little red storage box that sat nearby, placed the lid on the box and reached over to shove it into the open drawer of the nightstand beside the bed. He closed the drawer.

"Oh nothing really," he said. "Just a few boring old pictures from the last couple of years."

"Doctor," Hailey said quietly. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter," the Doctor said, the fake and overdone smile still on his face. "Just doing some sorting through some old stuff and trying to tiny up in here. Never was very good at it though as you can see. 'Course you knew that all along. I try to tiny up a room and it just gets more and more messy. I blame that of the tendency to become distracted I think.." He was starting to ramble on, clearly trying to distract both himself and her from whatever the trouble was. A couple of tears escaped from his eyes and he quickly turned away from her to stare at the wall, pretending to have noticed something he'd not seen before. Hailey began to panic once again. Something had happened, she knew that much. But she had no idea what it was or what to actually do.

"Doctor," she said with determination. She quickly crossed the room, reached over the bed, on which her friend still sat and trying to gently pull him around to look at her again. She just wasn't good with such situations. She didn't trust herself, but she knew who might be able to help. "Where'd Rose go? I can go and find her. Is she in her room?"

The Doctor mumbled something so coherently that she could even hope to make it out. She sat on the bed and quietly asked him to repeat himself. He finally turned to look at her and for a second she was shocked by the tears that streamed from his eyes. But she sat still and said nothing at all.

"Hailey, I lost her," he said, this time slightly more clearly. She was about to ask exactly what he could have possible meant by that, or to assure him that he must have been mistaken, but the look in his eyes told her that there was so much more to the situation than she so far knew. She stayed silent and he went on speaking, now clearly quite unable to stop once he had started.

"She couldn't hold on tightly enough... I told her to but she couldn't... Martha later just walked away because... just couldn't do this anymore... I destroyed her innocence. I've made so many mistakes, hurt so many people. Then Donna could have easily died. She was never the same... I couldn't save her... couldn't save anyone..."

His words were only somewhat clear and part of his rambling and confused explanation was lost in helpless tears. But Hailey was beginning now to really grasp the fact that this situation was indeed bad. No, not just bad - she let her self face the truth of it - something completely horrific had happened. Judging by the amount of names he had mentioned and the way everything sounded unrelated, she guessed it was a few terrible things. Something just

didn't feel right to her. She thought he looked older than the last time she seen him.

"Doctor," she said slowly, trying to understand so that she might have a hope of helping. "It's only been a year for me since we last saw each other. How long from your perspective?" She dreaded the answer.

"Three and a half years," came the helpless reply. Even that was nearly drowned by tears of helpless and disparate pain. "It's been so long. So much has happened since those early days. Everything was so easy then. Why did it have to get so hard?"

Hailey crept closer and mumbled slowly, and with great uncertainly, "I... I don't know.

I'm sorry it did, but I don't know."

For many long moments the two of them sat saying, neither saying anything at all. Hailey reached out to pull her friend closer to her and the Doctor stayed for a while half sitting and half laying with his body pressed against hers, still crying so hard both knew he couldn't just stop now. Hailey felt so completely helpless to do anything, but she had gathered from his mumbled story that there was no one else left on board. Not only had Rose not been there for at least a couple of years, but in the time since she'd left, other's had come and each of them gone again

After so many long minutes dragged on for a while longer he tried at last to pull himself together once again. He simply couldn't yet, and soon Hailey was crying her own stream of tears as she tried to imagine and relate to his feelings of despair and the many reasons for all of it.

Eventually he started to speak again, now even less clearly and sensibly than before. Much of whatever it was he said was entirely impossible to understand and so many details were missed so badly that it was not possible to follow it at all. But Hailey was able to grasp the very basic idea and that was enough to really see the seriousness of the entire situation. Three companions and best friends in three years had all been forced to leave him behind in one way or other. An old and long lost friend from childhood, who he had struggled for centuries from ideas of evil and needless power had chosen death over some compromise or other. So many people on Earth that he'd tried so hard to save from a couple of great conflicts that had spilled onto their planet from so far away, had died in spite of his best efforts and he just couldn't accept that number of innocent lives lost on top of all else.

She understood without anyone around to tell her, that he was near the point of a serious emotional breakdown. He'd always been so together and brilliant and so many other things. But all of those things were generally positive and good. She'd never seen him in such a state before as he was in now. She knew then exactly why it was that her ship had brought her to him at the time that it had. The two TARDISes were always vigilant and aware and ever thinking. His had known right away that he had needed someone who could help him and had sent for the only one of his companions it had within it's own power to send for. Hers had of course responded at once to it's desperate plea for help.

The Doctor fell asleep, too exhausted by the last hour to hold his eyes open anymore. Hailey slid gently and slowly out from under him, but his hands held tightly to the button down top of her green grocery store uniform. He reminded her so much in that moment of a helpless very small child, and she nearly started crying again. Carefully she moved just enough that she was laying on the bed and still letting him hold into her clothes. Her day had been a long one, and her sudden and unexpected flight through time and space had been the only thing that had fully woken her up after several hours of overtime standing on her feet. The shock of it had worn off by then and with her friend quiet and sleeping for the time being, she couldn't keep from falling asleep herself.

Hailey opened her eyes an unknown amount of time later. And at first wondered where she was. Then she remembered and wondered how long she'd slept. Her eyes snapped open in sudden concern for her friend as soon as everything came back to her, but she saw that he was half sitting up in his bed, leaning calmly against the wooden headboard and waiting to move much more to avoid waking her up. She sat up quickly and then he moved as well. Both nearly got to their feet but instead sat on the edge of the bed.

"Hailey, I am very sorry about this," the Doctor said and she could tell he was embarrassed about everything over the last many hours. "The emotion, the break down, that was just bad. I don't know how that happened."

"These things happen," Hailey replied simply and with a new kind of confidence.

"Yes but still. A companion and friend shouldn't have to find herself in such a... Never mind. Just please understand that I really didn't mean to..."

"Hey, don't worry so much about it. I understand, I really do."

The Doctor looked at Hailey, this time studying her clothing. "So I guess you work in a shop of some kind now then?"

"A grocery store," Hailey muttered. She realized something about herself in that moment though and instantly she voiced it. "I might quit though soon. I'm just pushing buttons on some cash register all day and listening to people either chatter on about their boring lives, carry on to me about how the produce is never fresh enough, or try to stop their children from screaming for sweets. I could do so much more than that."

Surprisingly the Doctor nodded his agreement. "Yeah, you could. You could do anything. You should do everything."

"Thank you."

From your perspective, how much have you experienced of what's become of the Earth lately?"

Hailey wondered at first how much she should reveal given the Doctor's so recently fragile state, but it had been him after all that had asked her the question. She never could lie to him very well, so choosing her words carefully she answered honestly.

"Well I live in the village now, with my mother and her husband. I never did back back to the city. I guess that's a good thing really, because there was some trouble in London a few months ago. It was in the paper and all over the news. The whole thing confused so many people and now they mostly all say it was some sort of crazy hoax, or a set up of some kind or other. People are so stupid some times. Of course they must all know something really happened that day. The whole world knows and they are all just so busy living in their little ideas of what reality is, that they can't wrap their heads around that one. But of course it was really. I mean, at least a thousand people died in London alone, and there was never an official death toll for the rest of the world."

"What happened?"

"I don't really understand it. I don't think anyone does. All anyone really knows is that there were metal men everywhere and eventually something that turned out to be even worse than that. Smaller machines, but they seemed to be able to think for themselves. People were shot at and blown up or just went missing. Both sides wanted to take over the world and kill everything. A war started over planet Earth. My god, that all seems so crazy, but it really happened."

"Of course it really happened. You've learned so well that little is beyond being possible, especially on Earth lately."

Hailey said no more about the matter. She know that that had to be where the whole run of terrible events had started. It had to be. Instead of talking about that or other related subjects anymore she proposed they go somewhere and see something new. She thought as she sat on the bed looking up at him and excitedly awaiting his eager response, that it would be like the old days again, even if only for a little while. She needed to give him something to keep him busy for a while and of course that seemed like just the thing. But instead of the excitement and agreement she'd somehow expected, he only looked at her sadly once again. He shook his head.

"Hailey, I'm very sorry, but you've got to go now."

"Go?" Hailey muttered in disbelieving surprise. She felt like crying again, with the feeling that once again hie was rejecting her. But at the same time she knew that he was not rejecting her at all. In fact he never had at all. There was always a good reason for his deciding to sent her away, and there was still a reason now why he was doing it a second time. "Go where?"

"Anywhere. Go off and do all that you want to do."

"Doctor... what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"I'm not stupid, and I'm certainly not so foolish that I could be convinced of that anymore. Please tell what's happening. I... I can help you."

"No Hailey. you can't."

Hailey took both of his hands in hers and she looked him directly in the eyes with determination plain on her face. "Please explain. Maybe I can't help, but I can at least understand."

"I'm going to die very soon," the Doctor said with complete seriousness.

His companion's mouth fell open in confusion and then stayed theat way for a second in unbelieving denial. "Oh come on. You can't possibly know that. Not for sure."

He turned to look at her again and mumbled a long and somewhat detailed story involving a bus and prophecy. Hailey only laughed than and shook her head.

"Oh for goodness sake. Please don't convince your self something is true just because some lady on a bus stranded on some desert planet told you it is. That's just ridiculous! Besides," Hailey said, her hope growing with each passing second now, "you're a Time Lord. You won't die. in most cases, you'd just end up regenerating. And that's assuming there's something to this crazy incident on the bus, which I still don't think there is."

"It all seems the same to me though," the Doctor explained. "You wouldn't understand. You're practically still a child, even if you are a Time Lord."

"Maybe I am. But..."

He silenced her with a firm look that told her the matter was settled and there was no debating it now. She was leaving again and he wherever it was that his path would take him, he would walk that path alone.

Hailey began to argue with him instantly. She let go of his hands, and reached over to throw both arms around him. She said with great resolve, "Doctor listen, if there really is something about to happen that's so bad it could kill you, you need someone to help you fight this battle. I couldn't help you before because I simply wasn't there, but I am now. Please take me with you. Please let me help..."

"I can't," the Doctor said, with just as much resolve. He returned her hug and for a moment he just help onto her, trying to commit another companion fully to memory again. "I wish I could. I don't want to be alone anymore. Something big is coming. I can't just tell somehow. It's been said that something is returning. Something that was lost and something that is so dangerous it must be stopped. I don't want to try to stop it alone and I'm not sure I can even succeed at all. But Hailey you're just a kid. You have a life to live. You could be so much and do so many things. I just can't put your life at risk. Not this time."

"I'm not just a kid," Hailey said almost in a whisper as she stepped back and looked up at him once more. "I'm another of your people."

"And that's what worries me," the Doctor said, finally admitting at least in part, his greatest concern about taking her with him on a path as dangerous as the one he was still so sure he would soon face.

It was against her better judgment that Hailey left the Doctor's TARDIS once again. He left her no choice at all but to leave him on his own again. She argued of course, but he refused to listen to any more of her arguments on the subject. When finally she turned from begging him to give her a chance to go along and help him, to begging him outright to please not let himself be killed, he only laughed it off with a comment about how no one ever really had much choice in such matter. Eventually she walked off the ship, not knowing what else she could possible do. It dematerialized as soon as she'd stepped outside. She was shaking at first from the fear and uncertainly of it all, but the universe itself seemed to assure her somehow as she walked away from the park that whatever happened, in the end it would be okay.

**A/N; Well that's it... this particular fanfiction has reached it's end. Sad way to end I know, and I'm sure it;s obvious where within the Doctor's time stream I put his last meeting with Hailey. But fear not readers, I am already well on my way to plotting the few few chapters of part two, and the first bit should be up soon enough. As always please review if you are so inclined. I'd love to know what everyone thought of this one. **

** Thanks to everyone who read this story and followed it and who added it to your favorites. I'm glad to find that you liked this one. **


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